


Long Ago, and In Another Country

by semaphore27



Series: Götterdämmerung 24/7 [4]
Category: Arthurian Mythology, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), FrostIron Fandom, Iron Man (Movies), Norse Religion & Lore, Sherlock (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anxiety, Archaeology, BAMF John Watson, Communication, Crossover, Depression, Doctor John Watson, Evil Plans, Gen, Good Loki, Intersex Loki, Language, Loki Feels, Loki's Kids, Loss of Powers, M/M, Magic, Married Mary Morstan/John Watson, Miscarriage, Morning Sickness, Mpreg, Mycroft's Meddling, Mystery, Parent Loki, Parent Tony Stark, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Travel, Vomiting, trigger - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-06 02:36:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 94,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14632313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semaphore27/pseuds/semaphore27
Summary: Tony and Loki are engaged (and even, slowly but surely, starting to learn how to actually communicate!). The kids are doing great and Loki is slowly recovering from his ordeals, when news comes from "The Minister" that Loki must fly at once to the U.K. His mission? To locate and neutralize an artifact that once belonged to his former partner, Myrddin Wyllt--better known as Merlin of Camelot. Along the way Loki and Tony meet up with a mysterious enemy, reunite with old friends, meet the son Loki gave up for adoption to save him from Odin's cruelty, and encounter an artifact that's... not so much an artifact as something magical and rare.There is a MAJOR loss in this installment, and a great deal of sadness--much like in real life.





	1. Communication Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Minister requires Loki to fly to London, which makes Tony both worried and angry--especially since the reasons for the mission are contained in Loki's past, a past Tony knows virtually nothing about. In the course of the evening there are several revelations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " _Communication Breakdown_ " is a song from Led Zeppelin's eponymous first album (1969).
> 
> Coulson demanded that Loki perform community service as a condition of his a release, service Loki performs at the Lower East Side Boys' and Girls' Club (or, as he would say, "Club of Boys and Girls"). Boys' and Girls' Club is a highly inclusive non-profit organization that gives kids snacks, homework help and fun activities as well as a safe, welcoming place to go after school. The organization, then known only as the "Boys' Club," began in 1860, gained its present name in 1990 and serves over 4 million kids in the 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and military bases.
> 
> NYU=New York University  
> Founded in 1831, NYU is a private research university. The Washington Square Campus (the school's main campus) is located in Greenwich Village. The Dept. of Linguistics and Dept. of Classics both are part of the College of Arts and Sciences and offer both undergraduate and graduate courses. Departments of Scandinavian Studies only actually exist in cities such as Seattle or Minneapolis, but _sssh..._ we're pretending that isn't the case.
> 
>  _The Britannica_ takes the prize for oldest general knowledge English-language encyclopedia still in production (it was started in 1768 in Edinburgh, Scotland) and still continues in digital production, though the last print edition was published in 2010.
> 
> Damn, Anthony Hopkins has been in a lot of movies! Among those mentioned are: _Beowulf_ (2007); _The World's Fastest Indian_ (2005); _The Remains of the Day_ (1993); and, of course, _The Silence of the Lambs_ (1991). As far as I can determine, however, he has never appeared in a Jane Austen movie, so Loki and Thor are probably safe. 
> 
> Mrs. Thea Ransome (o/c) is the family's personal chef.
> 
> Norton Juster's children's fantasy _The Phantom Tollbooth_ (1961) concerns a boy named Milo who's unexpectedly given a magic tollbooth and goes on a punny adventure through a magical land.
> 
> The drive from Malibu to Las Vegas, Nevada is just under 304 miles (about 489 km), or about a 4 1/2 hour dive. Vegas lies roughly 272 miles (438 km) from The Grand Canyon National Park, or 4 hours and a bit more. Both are pretty nice distances for a leisurely road trip--unless you're trapped in a mid-70's Cadillac with speed demon Howard Stark. Those mid-century Caddys also had weird ultra-smooth ride that was death to young motion-sickness sufferers. In addition, because such cars only got about 11 1/2 miles per gallon, and their gas tanks only held 25 gallons, we can probably guess that Howard didn't actually stop for his son's sake but because his fancy car was running on fumes.
> 
> Wang Laboratories (started in 1951, bankrupt in 1992) was actually, between the mid-70's and mid-80's, a highly successful computer company. They also maintained a vast in-house database to which they sold access, along with the necessary equipment, to businesses seeking semi-current info on a variety of financial, medical, and legal subjects. Imagine Google as invented by Fred Flintstone and costing hundreds of dollars an hour to use. Fun times! 
> 
> British Fish paste, so far as I can determine, appears to be what we in the U.S. refer to as "salmon dip," (or the seafood-of-your-choice dip/paste) only with butter in place of mayonnaise or cream cheese. 
> 
> Reed Richards is Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four, Ben Grimm is his friend and teammate, The Thing.
> 
> Etiquette Queen Judith Martin, better known by her pen name, "Miss Manners," wrote a long-running syndicated newspaper column, as well as a number of books on proper behavior.
> 
> The movie version of _Flash Gordon_ (1980) is indeed a campy, sparkly delight. The great Max von Sydow played Ming the Merciless.
> 
> Scholastic Books publishes a number of successful books for children and young adults. Houghton Mifflin has published a number of beautiful illustrated books.
> 
>  _Ymddiriedolaeth Myrddin_ =Merlin Trust  
> In a Trust, the trustmaker transfers asssets (money, property, etc.) to the trust, which is then managed by a trustee for the benefit of a beneficiary or beneficiaries. 
> 
> Loki's PandoraBox" songs are " _Round Here_ " from (1993) by Counting Crows, and " _Crush With Eyeliner_ from _Monster_ (also 1993) by R.E.M.

* * *

"On the morrow,” Loki said at dinner, in his best "here I am being totally casual about something that's going to freak you out" voice, “It is required that I fly to London. Permissions have been sought and obtained from Director Coulson, and also from Supervisor Jorge at the Lower East Side Club of Boys and Girls, with whom I will serve extra hours when the journey is completed. As the children are presently attending school, however, may I ask the boon, Tony, that they be allowed to stay here with you until my return?”

Tony stared at him, wondering if Loki (who had no tolerance for caffeine whatsoever) had gotten a little carried away with the java again. Exhibit 1: his even-more-than-usually-formal speed-talking—the first talking at all, actually, that Mr. Usually-Loquacious had done all meal, because he’d otherwise seemed like he was in a completely different universe, and a hazy one at that. Exhibit 2: some definite signs of jitters. With Loki ( as with people in general) the shakes weren't a good sign.

Also, since when did Loki get all crazed talking to _him_? Tony generally considered himself more of an anchor, someone for Loki to hold onto when things got iffy. Unless (and Tony was definitely getting more used to reading all the stuff that Loki didn’t say aloud, which each and every month could probably have filled a whole four-foot-long set of _Encyclopedia Britannicas_ , like the ones that took up half a bookcase when he was a kid).

Maybe both those warning signs were just his fiancé knowing Tony wouldn’t be super-crazy about what he had to say?

“That was quite an info-dump,” he answered slowly, smiling to let Loki know everything was okay, he didn’t have to worry. “Do I maybe get a little backstory, babe?”

“It is the _quid pro quo_ ,” Loki answered, looking just short of miserable. “And I know not what your ‘info-dump’ is.”

“The what?” For the life of him, all Tony could think of was _Silence of the Lambs_ , creepy cannibal-doctor Lector's voice saying _"quid pro quo_ , Clarice."

And hadn’t poor Loki freaked out when they saw that movie? Not because of cannibal psychiatrists (Midgardian mind-healers), or girl suits made out of real girls, or even “it rubs the lotion on its skin” (Loki’s word for lotion was unguent, or possibly balm, but he admitted lotion sounded better in the context—as a writer, he said, he would also have chosen lotion).

“So, you’re a writer now?” Tony had laughed.

Loki had given him a funny, almost hurt, look.

Fuck, was writing something Loki had been known for back in the Realm Eternal? Something else lost to him? Tony had been scared to ask.

But cannibals, girl suits, the misuse of lotion, those Loki could handle. What sent Tony’s own personal god of mischief and lies running for the bathroom, where he locked himself inside in full-on freak-out mode, was that the actor playing Hannibal Lector (Loki said, finally, when Tony could get it out of him) sounded just like his so-called father, and hearing his voice there in the penthouse, where he was supposed to be safe, panicked Loki completely. It was his recurring terror of the Allfucker just bending down from on high to scoop him up again and tear him away from everything he cared for, brought audibly to life.

"It has happened in the past," Loki told him, shivering.

The fact that blasé, sunny-tempered Thor less-articulately feared the same thing didn’t help matters.

Tony guessed that particular movie-night marked the upgrade of his vague knowledge that “Loki isn’t really okay” to an extremely definite: LOKI. IS. SO. NOT. OKAY. He really should have known that from the beginning.

Let’s not go into the number of times he’d happened upon the tear-sodden brothers clinging to one another, foreheads pressed together, mumbling between themselves in broken SpaceViking. And the equal number of times he’d beaten a hasty retreat, because Tony Stark might be a wizard at fixing machines, but he did not, emphatically, fix people. Only, who did, when the ones needing the help were Norse gods out of legend?

Like Bruce, Hank McCoy wasn’t that kind of doctor. Their close friend Kurt could be counted on to be a kind, level-headed young man whose shitty background made him wise beyond his years, and who always made himself available to listen with empathy and give sound advice, but who probably felt nearly as overwhelmed by his own helplessness as Tony did, all the more so because St. Kurt was actually the kind of person who was all about helping others.

Showing Loki pictures of Sir Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar (“that diminutive old man does not, in any respect, resemble the Mighty Lord of the Spear-Danes,” Loki had scoffed), and the guy who rode a motorcycle across Australia, and the star-crossed butler in _The Remains of the Day_ on his StarkPad didn’t help a bit, either.

“Thor and I meant to watch that! We had it in our queue!” Loki exclaimed, horrified, and immediately dialed up his brother to explain their near escape in semi-frantic SpaceViking, until Thor flew in out of nowhere via Mjolnir and the two of them soothed their jangled nerves by clinging together on the couch and having a Jane Austen marathon, making Tony first check all the cast lists online to make sure no lurking Anthony Hopkinses suddenly leaped out on the screen.

It was silly but, also, it… wasn’t. It was the silly that looked more like heartbreaking. Though Tony still couldn’t figure out why two strapping young warrior princes would share the entertainment tastes of middle-aged female librarians. Gods help them both.

“An ‘info-dump’ means a large sudden influx of information,” Tony informed his fiancé.

He expected Loki’s expression to change to, _Then why did you not use those words, peasant?_ the way it normally would—only it didn’t. He continued to look nervous, maybe even apprehensive.

“The…” Loki’s hands rose to shoulder height, fingers spread. "The ‘Tit for Tat,’ if you will. My freedom from S.H.I.E.L.D. the Minister won for me, that was the Tat. This I owe him, is the Tit.”

Jӧri giggled, hiding his mouth behind his dinner napkin.

“Jӧrmungandr!” said both Loki and Hela sternly. There would be no tit jokes on their watch.

_Woulda been right there with you, kiddo_ , Tony sent to his soon-to-be son.

“There ought just to be sufficient time before I begin at NYU,” Loki continued. “I shall be certain to complete the work with expediency, as always. Logan and Kurt have said they will be available to aid you, in any times you are busy, and dear Kitty, also, has volunteered, as she is, for the time, living here in Manhattan.” He faltered slightly, his eyes searching Tony’s face. “Or… Or if you would rather the children stayed with our friends entirely whilst I am away… It is only because of their schooling, and that it will still be quite cold in Wales where I shall work, the conditions primitive and the hours of my working perhaps long, else I would have them in my charge…”

Loki kept his smile, and his eyes stayed bright, but his hands trembled more than ever as he propped his elbows on the edge of the table, until he’d laced his fingers tightly together in front of him.

His gaze slid sideways, no longer looking at any of the family, staring down at his plate instead as he began to work his way steadily through the sea bass and warm pasta salad Mrs. Ransome had made for them that evening.

Tony was almost momentarily distracted. The sight of Loki willingly eating anything without trickery or even outright bribery involved was nearly unheard of. He was usually worse than a toddler being forced to try broccoli.

“I am certain Kurt and Logan would not mind,” Loki concluded. “If you would rather. If the duty is too onerous. I understand that you have great demands on your time, beloved.”

“Start at NYU? WHAT?” Tony felt his own eyes widen. He wasn’t quite sure what else his face showed, but it probably wasn’t good. “Uh… babe, really? Is this maybe something we should have talked about before? I mean, I think it’s fantastic you want a formal education, and I know you’d probably enjoy a trip, especially back to your old stomping grounds—but springing both on me totally last minute like this, without the middle part where we actually discuss anything? Putting aside my concerns as to whether you’re even up for something like this… Either of these somethings, actually…”

“I… ah… did not know I would be wanted so soon.” Loki’s gaze snapped to Tony’s face again, clearly worried about Tony’s meaning, increasingly so as he studied Tony’s expression further. “I… I do not…”

He looked perilously close to the point where he might be getting ready to unravel, but appeared to be holding it together by force of will, as he so often did. He kept rubbing the fingertips of his left hand together, spraying up tiny showers of gold and green sparks, a look on his face as if he was searching for something desperately.

“Ah, yes!” he said in sudden triumph. “Advance notice is the term! I had not advance notice of any sort, Tony. This came up suddenly. I must do it. I owe him, and it is not the way of Ministers to allow debts to linger in any Realm. And I am well enough. I must be well.”

The fact that Loki chose to put it that way pretty much told Tony the opposite. Whoever this ‘Minister’ was—the stick-up-his-butt ultra-British guy he’d met briefly at S.H.I.E.L.D. would have been his first guess—Loki was equal parts concerned about the task he’d been asked to do and whether he'd actually be capable of doing it.

“ _Pabbi_ , did Uncle Tony mean the ‘fantastic’ in which he wasn’t pleased at all, by any part of it?” Hela asked, taking Fen and Loki’s plates to the kitchen for another portion of fish each.

Loki inhaled his, started in grazing on the bits he liked best from the salad, then scarfed down the rest.

Fenrir devoured own piece happily as well. He was a perfectly normal-sized kid, but he was also constantly ravenous and would pretty much fall upon anything put in front of him like a... well, like a ravening wolf. Apparently he and his _Pabbi_ now had that in common.

But that was good. Although he wore it well, in his elegant supermodel way, Loki had been scary-skinny for far too long. His being willing to actually eat again had to be a good sign, right?

Loki picked up his fork, turning it nervously in his fingers. “As far as I am aware, my darling,” he told Hela softly.

“Why don’t you _really_ think it’s fantastic, Uncle Tony?” Jӧri asked. The inner lids slid sideways across his eyes and back again, three times, rapidly. The forked tip of his tongue poked out to rest on his lip, tasting emotion. “ _Pabbi_ is very, very smart, just like you. I thought that’s why you like him.”

“Jӧri, sweetling.” Loki touched a fingertip to his own lower lip, then added, “Uncle Tony is far more intelligent than I,” in a slightly brittle voice.

The worst thing was, Loki had no intention even of being snide. His brutal time with S.H.I.E.L.D. had completely torpedoed what vestiges remained of his self-esteem after his imprisonment in Latveria.  These words were probably just the run-up to a full-on dive into the Pit of Despair.

Jӧri’s tongue slipped back in. The red inner lids slipped across a final time and stayed, giving the boy’s normally green eyes a purplish hue. The small green frills behind his ears erected with a small rattle, poking out through his fine, silvery hair. It was a defensive gesture, Tony knew, most likely involuntary on Jör’s part, and told him clearer than anything whose side of this disagreement the kids would be taking.

They loved him, he knew that, but _Pabbi_ was _Pabbi_.

“No, he isn’t,” Jöri whispered to his plate, head bowed as if telling a secret.

“You all need to understand, absolutely, that when people get into a University for real they earn their places.” Jesus, now he was caught between trying to give the kids a moral compass (and, honestly, how would Loki know otherwise? It wasn’t like he’d received any sort of upbringing, even if Asgardian values had been anything like the Midgardian-American ways of doing things) and trying to let Loki know he wasn’t actually judging him.

Loki’s face, looked like something sculpted out of marble. Gods, he was gorgeous, that was undeniable—and Tony couldn’t beat that face for icy looks, no matter how he tried. With Loki it was like an art form. Which meant Loki was pissed, no mistaking—and, Tony realized, so was he.

Sometimes he felt as if he'd dedicated his life to raising three good, small kids and one insanely tall, diabolically stubborn one.

“They don’t cheat or trick their way in.  They don't forge credentials or make up a background that isn't really theirs,” Tony steamed on, full speed ahead, though he tried to keep his voice low and calm, irritated at himself for getting annoyed with Loki, when he really hadn’t intended to. “That isn’t fair. There’s a place in this world for clever tricks, sure enough, but this isn’t it. It’s really important to be honest, and honorable, and do the right thing. That way people know they can trust you, and you also aren’t stealing something from someone who might deserve, or need, it more.”

“Cheat or trick?” Loki breathed. The look on his face now clearly said, _What are we even talking about?_ Or at least, _Why are we talking about this?_ —but Tony intended to stand firm. He wasn’t going to let Loki wriggle out of what had clearly been a piece of unacceptable mischief by focusing on something else. “Oh, because I am…? Oh, Tony, _þú svíkur mig_.”

“ _Pabbi_ said, ‘you betray me,’ Jӧri put in helpfully.

“They set a good example for their kids,” Tony plowed ahead, fixing his gaze on Loki’s: his fiancé’s eyes had gone almost comically wide, his pupils like black holes in space. He looked like a Manga character having a spectacularly alarming day. “You’ve gotta know this stuff, Loki. I’m not trying to hurt or shame you, but it’s just basic fair play.”

“Kurt and Logan it shall be, then.” Loki rose and set his napkin, neatly folded, on the table. “And do you not, at any future time, Anthony Edward Stark of Midgard, involve my most-belovéd children in your petty squabbles. Or jealousies. Or whatsoever Midgardian foolishness this might be. Perhaps I ought to educate you in basic comprehension before you seek to lecture me.”

With that, Loki stalked off in a remarkably elegant yet threatening manner. Fen made a small growling noise, hopped down from his chair and rushed after him, slipping his small, clawed hand into Loki’s larger one. Loki scooped him up into his arms, holding him tightly, his face buried in Fen’s plushy hair.

Tony could feel the vibration of them sending to one another, but was shut out of the conversation. He could tell just by the stiff set of Loki’s shoulders that he was well on his way to meltdown, and that was the reason for his sudden escape. He’d cuddle with Fen and try to stave it off, focusing on lavishing love and attention on his little boy instead of the lava-flow of his own emotions.

Tony could never figure out if that was a good thing or not—how long could so much nasty stuff really be bottled in before it just exploded everywhere?

Jӧri and Hela looked at Tony, then at each other. “Please excuse us,” they said in a chorus of perfect politeness before leaving him too, alone on his moral high ground without a single lesson learned, the asshole with no family and solo kitchen cleanup duty.

The truth was, Tony wasn’t quite sure _what_ had just happened. He hadn’t thought he was being rude or mean, only trying to set things straight, to keep Loki out of trouble and keep the kids from making future mistakes. Did that make him evil? Inconsiderate? Cruel?

Damn. He still didn’t really know why his fiancé was London-bound, either.

Tony banged the dishes around with a little extra feeling as he loaded the dishwasher, but no one came back out to help him. He honestly couldn’t say he blamed them. He currently didn’t feel like he deserved much help. Was having a family always so damn frustrating?

Only a month now until he and Loki were supposed to get married, and Tony was more scared than ever that things were blowing up in his face. Or maybe blowing up was the wrong phrase. This thing he was doing with Loki was more like some weird tango, where he’d say or do something that wounded Loki deeply without ever meaning to and Loki would retreat, each time going further back into himself, the scar tissue growing thicker between them. Over and over.

It wasn’t even something he meant to do, it was just that Loki was so hurt, there almost wasn’t any part of him that wasn’t an open wound.

Tony told himself constantly, _be careful, be careful,_  the problem being, he wasn't, by nature, a careful man.

Bruce informed him it was his subconscious trying to tell him something, but Bruce would say that under these circumstances, wouldn’t he? Bruce would probably rather see Tony happily married to Victor von Doom than to Loki.

So it just kept happening, wash, rinse, repeat. When he knew very well how completely fragile the man he loved still was, emotionally and physically. And he did love Loki. Loved him with everything he had. Loved him, would live for him, would die for him.

That Loki loved him in return struck him as both astounding and without question. That Loki experienced everything on a crazily heightened level was also not open to debate, as Kurt had tried, in his gentle way, to explain. If Loki’s rage and his hate could be epic, his love tended to be even more so—witness the sacrifices he’d been willing to make to keep the kids alive and safe. As Kurt said, too, it was bound to be daunting.

Yeah, to say the least. Especially to a guy whose default settings, when it came to relationships, had always leaned just a little close to the shady sides of “clueless” and “selfish” with a dollop of “casual” mixed in.

Tony was perfectly capable of kindness, generosity, altruism, even self-sacrifice, it was just that his brain rushed along so fast sometimes he kinda forgot those were possible stops along the track.

His mental pace was kind of like the one and only road trip he’d taken with his old man, back when he was a kid. Howard was just supposed to check in for an afternoon meeting with some friends in Vegas, then they’d drive on to the Grand Canyon to take in the wonders of nature and have some father-son bonding (Maria insisted). Except Howard drove at about ninety m.p.h. the whole way, refused to stop for so much as cold drinks or potty breaks except when the car needed gas (and that monster must have had a frickin’ HUGE tank, because those stops were truly fucking nonexistant). The constant rush of blurred desert scenery past the windows, combined with the too-smooth motion of the Caddy had quickly made little Tony violently carsick, and by the time Howard agreed that a little Dramamine and ginger ale might be in order, they were about an hour out of Las Vegas.

They never saw the Grand Canyon together. The combined effects of sorrow, fear, nausea and motion-sickness pills made Tony sleep through his whole first day in the desert city. He woke by himself on a sofa in a pitch-dark hotel room he had no memory of entering, having been presumably carried in with the luggage, the front of his shirt still stiff with puke, his eyes stinging and gritty, and Howard (as it turned out) well into the premier day of a three day bender with his cronies.

Being a resourceful kid, Tony ordered room service, showered, changed his clothes, ate the food when it arrived, then phoned Jarvis to buy him a plane ticket home (it was all phones in those days, the closest thing to the internet some ass-backward phone-line-connected shared database thingie the unfortunately-named Wang Laboratories peddled to businesses for an exorbitant fee).

Instead, Jarvis ordered him to stay put and get some sleep (it was nearing midnight), but to be of good cheer because his loyal family retainer would come to collect him. Which he did.

By morning they were flying back to L.A., never having been able to locate Howard in those pre-cellphone days. By the time Tony’s old man arrived home at the end of the week, he had totally forgotten that he’d set out with his son in the first place, despite the fact that Tony had left him a note saying, “Thanks for the groovy trip, Dad. It was really cool getting to spend time with you, but I’ve gone home with Jarvis. See you some time. Your son, Anthony."

He was nine at the time. It was really the first of many future acts of rebellion, and perhaps an early example of the famous Tony Stark snark as well.

He later found out from Mrs. Cook (which was both her last name and function in the Stark household) that Jarvis had spent his own money to bring him home.

Tony wished he’d always been the kind of son Edwin Jarvis deserved. What would Jarvis have to say about his current situation? He’d been forever, in his kind way, telling Tony to slow down, to take a breath, to exercise whatever patience he could muster. To err on the side of kindness, because despite what Howard taught him, kindness was a strength and not a weakness. Jarvis had been so loving, in his formal British way, and so wise. Tony could hear him asking now, _What are you wishing to discover from Master Loki, young sir? What do you hope to gain from this?_

What was Tony trying to discover, anyway? The point at which the civilized veneer cracked and Loki’s inner monster came out to play, ruthless, wicked, nasty? The point at which Loki showed his original feistiness again?

It looked more and more like what he'd actually get would be the point at which Loki hit rock bottom and broke down completely, to where he couldn't even function.

Doom & Co., and S.H.I.E.L.D., with their tender mercies combined had done the worst kind of job of abuse and neglect on him. He was jumpy as a cat, and though he never said anything, Tony suspected he was still often in pain, his energy so low he couldn’t make it through the day without collapsing into at least a couple exhausted naps. He suffered from brutal night terrors and up until just the past couple days he barely ate.

Much of Loki's magic seemed to be intact, but his godlike healing and immunity were nowhere to be seen, and without them that magic was too dangerous to access regularly. To say that made Loki’s life difficult was an understatement. For him, magic was like breathing.

_So, Tony_ , he said to himself on Loki’s behalf, _Thanks for making all that so much easier, best belovéd._

Jarvis would not approve. Jarvis was a proponent of civilized behavior at all times. Jarvis would have taken the broken mischief-god under his wing, tricked him into eating fish-paste sandwiches with the crusts cut off and drinking endless companionable cups of tea while winkling (now there was a Jarvis word) his worries out of him, just as he’d often done with Tony, immersing Loki in his common-sense and good nature.

Tony wished he’d been able to program the same qualities into his A.I., but Loki’s reaction to J.A.R.V.I.S. ranged from apprehensive to terrified. The A.I.’s voice was never to be heard in their bedroom (a stricture J.A.R.V.I.S. constantly broke “accidentally,” much to his fiancé’s distress) and the kids were never, ever, under any circumstances, to be left alone with him. Loki himself hated to be left alone in the penthouse, claiming the A.I. “tortured” him when no one else was there, and Tony indulged him (a little), knowing the real enemy was all Loki’s solitary weeks in confinement, with only disembodied voices for company, voices Loki hadn’t even been sure, by the end of his time with S.H.I.E.L.D., were real or imagined, he’d been so damaged, and so ill.

The door to their bedroom opened briefly and a black portfolio flew out into the hall at high velocity, propelled by nothing Tony could see. It crash-landed on the living room coffee table.

_Well, that made a point_ , Tony thought. _Something in there you want me to look at, Loki?_

The kids followed in a more traditional manner.

“ _Pabbi_ said Jӧri and I are to give Fen his bath, then get ready for bed,” Hela told him.

“I’d be glad to help out,” Tony said.

“We’re perfectly capable,” Hela answered pleasantly, so pleasantly, in fact, it just seemed to obliterate all of her personality, hiding everything of the small girl he loved and thought he knew so well.

“Okay, then. Good,” Tony said. “You three go ahead and hop to it. I want to apologize to your _Pabbi_ for our misunderstanding at dinner. Give a yell if you need anything.”

Jӧri and Hela traded a look. “Yes, Uncle Tony,” they chorused politely.

Fen made one of his humming sounds and bumped his head against Tony’s thigh.

“Talk to _Pabbi_ ,” Hela agreed. “Only be extra nice to him this time, Uncle Tony. You totally missed what he was actually telling you.”

“You have to listen better!” Jӧri added, and though Childlike Empress Hela gave him a “ _better manners, please_ ” kind of head-tilt, she didn’t open up her mouth to disagree.

Fenrir delivered another hard head-bump and a small, disapproving growl.

_Ouch_ , Tony thought--and not from the bump.  He had to agree with the kids on this one. He wasn’t exactly impressed by himself at the moment either.

He rapped softly at the bedroom door, and when he didn’t receive an answer, went in anyway.

Loki was lying along the foot of the bed, facing away from him, a pillow hugged to his chest.

_You are such a shithead_ , Tony told himself. _A sanctimonious shithead_. Hela was right, there was something he completely wasn’t getting here. How the ever-lovin’ fuck (as his frenemy Reed Richards's lumpy good buddy Ben Grimm might say) could he have so completely missed the boat on whatever it was his own amazing Loki had been trying to tell him?

He’d gone all Miss Manners on Loki without even any proof, really, that he’d done anything sketchy--and in front of the kids, no less.

Loki startled violently when Tony touched his cheek to brush back a tendril of curly hair.

“Hey. Didn’t mean to catch you off guard. You okay in there?”

Loki blinked slowly. “I am well.”

“You look a little bit the opposite,” Tony said.

Which was true. Loki looked stressed, ill, deeply sad, the way he actually looked a lot of the time, and then some.

Clearly, he’d sent the kids to get ready for bed because even with their stabilizing presence he wasn’t coping. He was terrified of losing it in front of them.

Tony lay down on the big bed facing him. “I have a feeling I owe you such an apology. Will you tell me what I didn’t get?”

Loki returned his look with shadowed eyes, saying nothing for several minutes. “It matters not. The fault is mine for reacting so shamefully when no offense was meant. Pardon me, I beg of you.” He hugged the pillow tighter, lines of pain appearing at the corners of his mouth, his eyes.

“Oh, babe,” Tony stroked his hand up and down the concave curve of Loki’s stomach, feeling the knots of tension there, where Loki always carried his stress. He continued to rub gently. “I didn’t handle it right and I didn’t mean to insult you. Honestly. I just thought it was something you didn’t know about how things work here.”

In return Loki traced the line of Tony’s jaw with a long index finger. His words, when he spoke again, were heartbroken. “I might as well be in Asgard now, Tony, with the Warriors Three. I am no more adept at getting along here in your world than I was in theirs.”

_Ouch_ , Tony thought again.

“Oh, Lok, don’t say that.”

“It was a clever jape I played upon myself, making believe I could be loved, when that is clearly impossible. An excellent bit of mischief, Tony, wouldn’t you say? I ought to give myself highest regards. Such an excellent piece of foolery!”

Tony watched the layers of bitterness and emotional armor fly up between them almost faster than he could follow and he hated the ones who’d hurt his Loki so—himself included, now and then. It crushed him that Loki wasn’t even blaming him for whatever he imagined was happening—no, he was blaming himself, for letting down his guard and becoming vulnerable, or the even worse crime, in his mind, of being gullible.

“I am so stupid, always!” Loki spat.

“Loki, Loki. No, babe, no.” Tony gathered his unresisting body closer, rubbing his shoulders, his back. Loki felt so miserably tense, shaking in his arms, it made Tony miserable himself. “The fact that I’m a shithead sometimes and jump ahead of myself, or don’t get what you’re trying to say, doesn’t mean I don’t love you, or that you’re not brilliant, or anything. It just means we’re still learning each other, and that’s perfectly okay. Normal, even. Tonight I probably jumped to some stupid conclusions and said some idiotic things that had nothing to do with what you were telling me, and you went full speed ahead on to mad at me, and got hurt, probably because you were already super-stressed about this trip to England thing.”

Loki sat slowly, carefully, taking shallow breaths through his nose.

“Babe, you don’t look so good,” Tony said. “I’m absolutely not telling you what to do, but can I, or Hank—or even Director--pull some strings for you? I’m really scared you’re not well enough yet for traveling. I don’t want you to get worse again.”

Loki straightened, posture impeccable, as if absolutely nothing was wrong—except that his gorgeous green eyes were cloudy and dull.

“You deciding I would need to cheat my way into a course of undergraduate studies?” he exploded suddenly. “Tony, that was demeaning.”

“The first of many things I got wrong, I bet.”

Loki gave him the barest flicker of a smile. “In truth, I completed my Midgardian undergraduate studies—and all but my third doctorate—decades before you were born.” He ran a hand over his ashen face. “The portfolio on the table contains my academic credentials, the particulars of my British citizenship.” His mouth quirked. “Even my medals.”

“Medals?” Tony said faintly.

“As you might recall, Captain America is not the only hero, so-called, of your Second War of All Midgard,” Loki answered, picking himself up off the bed, his expression pained. “Although I am now to him only the murdering war criminal all know that I am. And, so that you are aware, not only have I failed to cheat my way into an undergraduate’s place at NYU, I have been offered a full professorship. And I assure you, I earned my position fairly. I’ve a perfectly serviceable mind, now and then. Nothing to your genius, of course, but serviceable.”

“Jesus, Lok,” Tony said lamely.

He didn’t need to ask Steve for clarification on the World II story. He’d heard the heroic tale of Captain Friggason--all the Avengers had, except Thor. The same Avengers who were all probably working on their “ _No! Really?_ ” faces for when Cap finally told them how the story ended, even though Loki’s bitter tone informed him that his fiancé and Steve had already thrashed that one out, and not very happily.

Additional evidence could be found in the fact that, although almost no one seemed to do Loki the courtesy of calling him Mr. Anything, Steve consistently referred to him as “Mr. Laufeyson.” Because why wouldn’t Loki want to use the name of a father who tried to murder him as a baby?

Loki seemed to take this as Steve’s way of expressing, “Too bad your bio-dad wasn’t more successful with his plans for you.” The name crushed him every time Cap said it, even though Tony tried to explain that it was undoubtedly just the Captain being, well, oblivious rather than spiteful. Whatever Steve's faults might be (a predilection for blindly following orders being one of them, in Tony’s not-so-humble opinion), spite was not among them.

“Yes, Jesus, Lok,’” Loki responded, in the haughty voice that meant, _I’m totally pretending I am not miserably unhappy at the moment_.

“Better than a month past, I told you I had left two surprises for you on your StarkPad, things which gave me much pride. Nearly every day I step into your workshop and admire your creations. I think the world of you. I praise you constantly to others. Have you once set foot in my studio? What do you say of me to your friends? ‘Foolish Loki, with his quaint manner of speech.’ ‘Stupid Loki, who can’t assimilate to our customs.’ When you have learned nearly the whole of Asgardian culture in less than a six-month, when better than half that time you were cruelly imprisoned, or so injured you could scarcely read, or even hold a book, feel free to mock again. Until then, Tony, best beloved, I am dancing as fast as I—to use your favorite word—fucking can! What cruel pleasure does it give you to tear me down, instead as of bearing me up, as a true-hearted betrothed ought?”

Loki’s eyes glistened, though his face was hard and set. “Now am I going to see to my children, and take comfort where I can.”

“I thought they were _our_ children. That’s what you told me.” Tony caught hold of his hand, trying to plead without saying anything, though he knew there was a ton of stuff he ought to have said.

All at once all Loki’s haughtiness fled. He sagged beside Tony on the edge of the mattress, arms wrapped tightly over his stomach.

“I am too tired to fight any longer,” Loki told him, after a time. It wasn’t clear whether he meant with Tony, or with life in general.

Maybe both.

“What was done…” Loki paused, then tried again. “What was done to me… I am so damaged, so unlike myself, belovéd, that I cannot even say if I shall heal. I feel no love for myself, beyond that which is reflected back to me by my dear ones. If you would not be counted in that number, if your heart and your mind have in any way changed toward me, be assured I would not hold you to your oaths. Whatever pain it caused to me, you would be released.”

He pressed a trembling hand over his own heart. “Freely, best-beloved, as my parting gift, without malice or mischief to follow. In truth, I cannot understand why you should want to keep my company.”

“Oh, babe. Loki. God, that’s what’s been buzzing around in your poor head?” Tony pulled him close again, stroking Loki’s curling ebony hair, even nowl growing out from the unfortunate razor-buzz S.H.I.E.L.D. had given him. He was still totally unable not to get half-drunk on the fantastic scent of Loki’s skin.

“I think that’s what really amazes me about how dumb I can be—that I was with you, and saw it all, and I don’t manage to get it right half the time.”

“Saw it all, did you?” Loki gave a soft, bitter laugh. “Saw all that has befallen me?”

“By which I mean an infinitely small portion, which should still be enough to make me do better. Please forgive me? I really didn’t set out to make you mad. I’m so new at this loving stuff. When I mess up, it’s on me, not on you. I freely admit I’ve let you down, often, and you’ve been so brave, and so fantastic. I love the way you put things. I love how hard you try, though you totally don’t have to, you can take it way easier than you do. I just love you, Lok. As you are, or however you want to be.”

Loki sat beside Tony in silence for a long while, with his extravagantly perfect posture and his too-controlled breathing, while Tony thought, _Say something, Loki, please please please, just say anything. I’m gonna fall apart in a million pieces_.

Loki’s eyes turned to his, both darker than ever, and more fiery than Tony had ever seen them. “' _Pathetic earthling_ ,'” he intoned, supercilious again as it was possible for a being to be, then leaned in a little closer to murmur in Tony’s ear, his hand cupping Tony’s cheek, “ _'Who can save you now_?’”

Tony experienced a moment of _Whoa!_ before it hit him, and he began to laugh his ass off.

“And we have Ming the Merciless for the win! Forever a classic, and definitely a pop culture reference from Mr. Loki Friggason. Is that a first for you, babe?”

“I believe it may well be,” Loki answered, his smile almost shy, forgiving and pleased. “I watched _Flash Gordon_ with Kurt and the children when you were in the lab with Bruce the other evening. It was exceedingly sparkly and silly. I can now only believe that I failed in my domination of Midgard by the drab lack of splendor of my robes. Something to keep in mind for another day, I imagine.”

That was new also—Loki actually making a joke about his worst time.

He kissed Tony tenderly, lips meltingly soft against Tony’s mouth, long fingers weaving through Tony’s hair.

_I love you beyond imagining,_ came the merest whisper inside his head. _Forgive my mercurial nature and my temper, the way chaos forever rules me. I cannot quarrel with you, my darling, especially now._

Tony couldn’t think what to answer; he didn’t believe Loki meant him to hear. Not something so naked, and so personal.

_Especially now?_ he wondered.

“Let’s check on the kids,” Tony said.

* * *

The whole family piled up on his and Loki’s bed to have Tony read to them from _The Phantom Tollbooth_. It had been his favorite when he was young, a book the human Jarvis read it to him at bedtimes, over and over. He could tell Jӧri loved the story too, just as he had, because he laughed in all the right places.

Fen enjoyed any kind of reading—he was happy hearing Tony’s voice, lying in Loki’s arms while Loki, looking exhausted after his outburst, and obviously, really not feeling well, nuzzled his son’s hair and played with his little clawed toes. Hela seemed less impressed—as she put it, she preferred stories that were _psychologically_ driven, and at any rate Tony suspected she spent the whole story time sending with Loki while she appeared to be sitting calmly by his side, elaborately braiding her waist-length hair.

Every time Tony glanced up at the two he could see their green eyes flickering like candle flames.

Tony didn’t like to admit that he had favorites among the kids, because each, individually, was entirely precious to him, but Hela… His Childlike Empress was so extra special, and had been from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. She was the one with Loki’s strong personality, his aristocratic (some might say snobbish) ways, his brilliance, his artistic temperament, and like her _Pabbi_ , Hela hit him where he lived.

Yet another reason why that evening was so crazy. He had to be sensitive. Had to. He could not go forward without his impromptu family. It would kill him.

Tony realized they were staring at him.

The book had fallen out of his hands. Jӧri picked it up carefully, closed the cover, and set it on Tony’s nightstand.

“Tony,” Loki said, with a kindness Tony could not in a million centuries have imagined in him three years before. “Why don’t you put on your pajamas? We’ve had a bit of a difficult evening. I think we could all use a family cuddle tonight, don’t you, before we are temporarily parted tomorrow?”

All three kids immediately threw themselves on top of him, knocking the breath out of Loki’s lungs.

“And quickly!” he gasped. “Save me from these Berserkers!”

Laughing, Tony retreated to the bathroom to change.

* * *

He hadn’t meant to fall deeply asleep, but it was so warm and cozy with Loki wrapped lovingly around him and the children wound in between Tony supposed he couldn’t help but drift away. Not to mention that Loki nearly always smelled good, but for some reason that evening he smelled extra freaking fantastic. It was all Tony could do not to sniff him obviously and repeatedly.

He dropped off with his face buried in his fiancé’s hair and it was past two in the morning when he surfaced again, and then only because he needed to pee. He took care of that, then came back to get the kids to their own beds.

Hela had already gone on her own, his independent girl. A quick peek into her room showed her fast asleep beneath her black lace canopy. A smile plucked at her rosebud mouth when he bent to kiss her brow, but she didn’t wake. Jӧri didn’t wake either, not really, when Tony walked him to bed, though he put up his arms for Tony to lift him. Tony sat on the edge of the bed with the little boy on his lap and hugged him close, this child who was most like him of the three.

Would Jӧri be the face of Stark Industries someday, when Tony was his dad, as he soon hoped to be? Jӧri loved spending time with Tony in the workshop and had started inventing things already, clever things, too—little robots like the undersea creatures that fascinated him so (his whole bedroom was painted with them, thanks to Loki, who despite his total denial of his talent had turned out to be a fantastic artist, like a brilliantly-colored floor-to-ceiling tropical reef, even more gorgeous than the real thing).

Jör had a corkscrew twist of ingenuity that impressed Tony all the more because it was in no way native to his own intelligence. He loved that he didn’t quite get how his almost-new-son’s brain worked.

Would people accept Jӧri? He was a shapeshifter like Loki. He could already pass for human entirely when he wanted, and Tony suspected he did so at school, unlike his sister, who delighted in flaunting her differences. “Passing” for ordinary somehow seemed like such a betrayal of adorable snaky real-Jӧri.

Tony tucked him under his warm duvet and kissed him goodnight. Jӧri’s sky-blue tongue came out, tasting love.

He collected Fen last of all, picking him up like a baby out of Loki’s arms, though he was the heaviest of the lot. Once Fenrir was down for the night he was like a bear cub in hibernation, he didn’t wake for anything. Tony cuddled him to his chest—his mellow, happy little guy who had once savagely, in mere minutes, torn an _Æsir_ god to bits. Tony suspected that a lot of Loki’s misery lay right there—there was absolutely nothing he could have done, nothing he could have changed, but along with everything else on his conscience he carried this huge sack of guilt that he hadn’t been able to protect Fen from what Doom had made happen to him (although the fact that Fen was a healthy and happy little boy probably had plenty to do with Loki giving him each and every one of his magical wards before they ever set foot in Doom’s throne room) and then hadn’t been allowed to be with his son when he most would have benefited from healing.

And it didn’t matter at all that Fen was bouncy, joyful and content, or that trying to heal him then would undoubtedly have killed Loki himself, weak as he was. Loki just wasn’t going to forgive himself for anything.

His fiancé saying he couldn’t love himself had been like a slap in the face; despite all the evidence, he’d had no idea how badly his beloved was hurting.

“Goodnight, little man,” Tony said, kissed Fen and ruffled his thick, velvety hair.

Fenrir made a cheerful sleepy-sound, halfway between a growl and a purr, as Tony tucked him in.

He stopped at the bar for a double scotch—he had a feeling he was going to need it—and took a seat on the couch with Loki’s mysterious portfolio.

Apparently NYU hadn’t made a connection between the alien god of lies who’d led the attack on New York three years earlier and sleek, well-qualified Dr. Loki Friggason in his almost ostentatiously perfectly-cut suit. No reason why they should. No reason why Tony should, still, when he knew Loki had been both mind-controlled and not in his right mind (thanks to his horrific tumble into the abyss) at the time of the assault, that every bit of free will he possessed had gone toward trying to minimize the damage, not increase it.

Like everyone else, Loki didn’t cut himself the least bit of slack, but added the full blame to those jagged shards of guilt and hurt that tore him up inside.

At least he was trying to build a new life. Despite whatever it was he owed the mysterious Minister, and his arrangement with S.H.I.E.L.D., that always seemed more designed to humiliate than rehabilitate. Tony admired the courage it took to do that at all, much less with the dignity Loki demonstrated on a daily basis.

As it was, NYU was pleased to offer Loki a professorship in Linguistics and Ancient Languages. Pleased was actually probably not a strong enough word. Tony had to admit he was fairly impressed by Loki’s dual Doctorates in Linguistics and in Ancient Languages from Cambridge, and a somewhat more recent one in Archaeology from Oxford. Loki also seemed to have made scholarly publications the way other people read newspapers—including a couple in the past three months, when he was supposed to be doing nothing but resting and recovering, the sneaky bastard.

The stuff Loki wrote about in his papers pushed so far beyond Tony’s understanding his fiancé might as well have been writing in SpaceViking, but his peers in the peer-reviewed journals sounded beyond impressed. Sometimes they were so impressed that, with their own theories lying in the dust whimpering (rather like poor Loki himself after being Hulkerated), they got argumentative, only to get the thoroughly erudite Loki smackdown yet again.

It was pretty funny, even given that Tony only understood about a quarter of what was being said.

And so, lesson learned (like the smackdownees) about maintaining his superiority complex in the face of another person’s genius. He definitely wasn’t the only one who wore the smarty-pants in the family—and Tony had a feeling Hela was fast catching up to him, too, with Jöri soon to follow.

Loki, it should be mentioned, had also been known to do consultations for the British Museum. And the British Library. And was a Special Agent to the Crown, whatever that meant. Maybe, like James Bond, he had a license to kill, for all Tony knew.

He was also, apparently, part of something called the _Societatem Aeterni_ , which, among other things, seemed to carry a government directive not to question the dates of its members’ achievements too closely. As in, if the nice-lookin’ early-thirties guy in front of you presents you with his _Societatem Aeterni_ seal, or papers, or whatever the hell, the British government politely requested that you not ask why his college degree dates back to 1929. Just go with it. He has some mad skillz.

Loki’s was an actual seal, nearly the size of one of the kids hands, and heavy as fuck, probably 22 carat gold or something, from its rich golden gleam.

It was like the big brother of the kind used to stamp sealing wax, which Tony knew because it had briefly been a thing, back in the late 70’s. At the time, his very young self had dated a girl who liked that kind of stuff, and he’d given her a stamp with a heart on it, along with these little red semi-candle-thingies, for Valentine’s.

Cherries had been happily and gratefully lost as a result, which was probably why he remembered--that and it was possibly the final time he hadn’t been a shithead at gift-giving. He always meant well.

By squinting and the judicious uses of a magnifying glass (and a mirror), Tony was able to read the backwards inscription:

Aeternum et Regni Procuratorem Speciali Societatis  


Loki Frigga Filius Natus Anno Domini CMLXIV  


Da Ei Introitus in Aeternum Atriis Tuis  


Signaculum hoc Nunc et Accipere Regium Nostris Nostris  


in Extremo Aut in Ira Nunc et Usque in Saeculum Post  


Georgius Maiestatis Septimus Dei Gratia Rex Britonum  


Percussum MCMVII

Which, holy fuck, Loki!

The discrete use of Google graciously translated that mess as:

_Society of the Eternal and Special Agent to the Crown_  


_Loki Son of Frigga, Born in the Year of Our Lord 964_  


_Grant Him Forever Entrance Unto Thy Halls_  


_And Accept Now this Seal by Our Royal Command Or Suffer Our Extreme Displeasure,_  


_Now and Forever After His Majesty George VII,_

_By the Grace of God King of the Britains_  


_Struck 1907_

The British, Tony thought, were so civilized about things like that. Or did he mean weird?

He was slightly shaken, however, by the fact that Loki had received his seal in 1907 (which was also the year his Great-Grandma Olivetti was born). A small part of him wanted to look up other things that had happened that year. The rest of him didn’t. It just made everything too strange.

Somehow that date was harder for him to handle than the 964. The year nine hundred fucking sixty-four. The Dark Ages. The Viking Age. His brain kept wanting to do calculations.

Baldr first… okay, he couldn’t say it, but 978. Loki first got pregnant five years later, in 983, and delivered Narfi and Vali in 985. Loki caught and captured, bound under the mountain in 990. Released around 1190 (and were still not up to the Middle Ages, though close!). The tortured prince hidden in his chambers, grieving for his lost sons, until 1340 (and we’re just in time for the beginnings of the Little Ice Age and the Hundred Years War and, soon, the Northern Crusade of King Magnus II of Sweden against Novgorod—yes, he looked the decade up on the internet, so sue him, he was an engineer not a historian).

And then? Fun with the ‘rents and Thor in Asgard? Learning magic from Frigga, having his soul crushed by the Allfucker? Turning pale from all those years standing in Thor’s shadow? Being told: _“Your birthright is a throne, Loki;_ ” “ _You need to learn these things to be a king, Loki;_ ” “ _Your control of your_ seiðr _must be absolute, Loki_ ,”

And, once all those things have been learned, once you’ve become the consummate _Seiðmaður_ , we’ll all call you _ergi_ , womanly, not a warrior or a real man at all, no matter how many times you fight for us, no matter how many times your Craft saves us, you are less, you are worthless, you’re a liar and a trickster and a cheat.

Crafty Loki, Sneaky Loki, who actually bore babies inside him, so we all know it must be true.

Loki who could never, ever live up to his brother, the shining Golden Prince—who, ironically, envied his brother’s brilliance and skill in return.

And Odin, above them, constantly jerking their strings. Thank you All-wise, All-knowing, All-powerful Allfucker for your fantastic parenting skills. When your son is literally hanging by a thread (okay, a spear), pleading for your love and acceptance, the best you have is, “No, Loki.”

When he comes back to you with his mind broken and twisted by his guilt, and awful experiences, and your bloody lies, after you’ve kept him in cold-storage like that stuff at the back of the freezer that you just might find a use for someday, you tell him, “Death was your birthright” and you stuff him in an isolation cell for what’s meant to be the rest of his life.

No wonder Loki didn’t even try to plead his own case with the old man; what would have been the use?

And then there was Mommy Dearest: _Here, Loki darling, I’ve asked your father not to kill you. Have some books and an attractive end table for the lonely cell where you’ll lose what’s left of your mind. I’ll drop by in spirit form from time to time to see how you’re decaying… err… doing, okay?_

But Tony never would have said anything against Loki’s mom. Not now, not ever. A drowning man has to cling to something, even if it’s just twigs.

He had a sudden urge to hug and squeeze and kiss Loki and never let him go, just to prove to him how really, truly he was loved, that he was worthy and special and every good thing. Despite the misunderstandings he’d dropped on his love that very same evening.

The _Norns_ only knew how Loki had held on, in his situation, until the twentieth century.

When and how had he met Myrddin, and how on earth had Myrddin been able to bear cutting him loose to do the crazy dangerous shit (just as Steve-o described) that he’d done in WWII? Because there was both the physical, the stuff Steve had talked about, as in parachuting into enemy territory and freeing whole camps full of captured soldiers from right under the Nazis’ noses, and the cerebral, something that involved cracking codes, then tampering with the original decoders so they’d end up relaying exactly the message the Allies wanted them to relay to the enemy, whatever the original message said. Both of those sounded perfectly within Loki’s wheelhouse in terms of mischief managed—and somebody was sneaking into Nazi HQ’s, tampering with machines. Three guesses who.

Only what else had he been up to on Midgard for the better part of the Twentieth Century? Why hadn’t he mentioned it, except in the vaguest sort of passing?

The portfolio held a long, handwritten letter, still in its neatly-opened envelope, dated New Year’s Day 1946 and signed by the aforementioned Myrddin, whose full name turned out to be Myrddin Wyllt. Myrddin had oddly beautiful but unreadable handwriting, and furthermore appeared to be writing in what Tony guessed (from the Cardiff postmark and the overabundance of y’s and double-d’s and double-l’s in the letter itself) was Welsh.

Obviously what he’d written meant something to Loki—for all Tony knew it told the whole story, but he wasn’t going to know that without some words of explanation from Mr. Mischief himself.

A small black and white photo had been tucked into the envelope, Loki in a casual shot, looking at what appeared to be a map, with another strikingly good-looking man, both of them with cropped old-time haircuts, wearing uniforms (and didn’t Loki look smokin’ in his, as did, truth be told, the other dude). Both of them had serious brothers-in-arms type expressions (why did everybody in pre-1950 photos always look so grim?). These guys, undoubtedly, were on their way to do something important and take no prisoners—or maybe, in Loki’s case, to save a whole bunch of prisoners.

_Hello, Myrddin Wyllt?_ Tony thought, staring at the other guy (the competition, he presumed, at least in Loki’s memory).

The man appeared quite a bit shorter than Loki, but the two of them together, both slender, elegant, dark-haired, made the handsomest fucking couple—if they were a couple, something they certainly wouldn’t have been able to acknowledge anyway, back in the day--he’d ever seen.

He wondered what people would say when Loki finally felt better and they did some stepping out together? Tony fantasized sometimes about showing off his soon-to-be-dearest-husband, gorgeous in a perfectly-cut tuxedo (couture Darius King, maybe? Loki could totally carry off the edgy elegance of King) at events, Loki turning his considerable charm up to high volume and wowing them all.

Except for the writers of the hate mail, that was, proving yet again the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. The people who informed him he was going to burn in hell, his fiancé and children too. Who told him they disapproved of his disgusting lifestyle. Who said they’d never buy Stark Industries products again.

To which Tony publicly said nothing (though Stark Industries _very_ publically increased contributions to all sorts of equality-related causes) and privately thought, _good luck with avoiding us, shit-heads, because we’re fucking **everywhere**_.

Loki, who Tony hadn’t meant to see the hate letters at all, had been first horrified, then confused.

“I understand not,” he’d murmured, still scanning the venomous words. “Are not such sentiments of hatred the opposite of those supposedly expressed by the Christian man-god, as explained to me by my dearest Kurt?

"Because I asked after his beliefs, from curiosity,” Loki was quick to explain, “Not because he proselytized to me. He wanted you to know. I looked up the meaning of the word proselytized, and Kurt most definitely did not do such a thing, only answered the questions I put to him, even when I compared the travails of his man-god to the legends of Odin hanging nine days and nights in the world-tree in pursuit of knowledge—which was absolutely a lie, I believe, born of the grossest self-aggrandizement on my never-father’s part--and of Prometheus in the belief system of the ancient Greeks. ”

Tony actually had to laugh. Poor Kurt, having Loki go all Comparative Religions on him. But you’d think that if a SpaceViking god of mischief could see the contradictions…

“We have a Midgardian saying,” he’d told Loki, “Haters gonna hate.”

Loki nodded slowly. “I understand that saying. It is the story of the frog and the adder crossing the river. It is their essential nature.”

“You got it, babe,” Tony had said. And all because of a little blurb in the society pages, with a sweet picture of him with Loki and the kids, Mr. Anthony Edward Stark, of New York and Malibu, announces his engagement to Mr. Loki Friggason, of Reykjavik and London…

It would be the love story of the century—or at least the decade--provided he didn’t push poor Loki over the edge, or permanently back into the arms of Mother England, before that happened.

And there Tony got to part of the gist of his own insecure behavior that evening: he knew how much Loki loved London, and he was afraid if his fiancé returned there, he wouldn’t want to come back to New York, because life here, branded as a criminal, surrounded yet again by people who hated him, was somewhat less than ideal, but Tony wanted him to put up with it because New York was _his_ home. How was that for petty selfishness on his part?

That aside, it sounded as if Loki had had a really decent life in the UK. Which begged the other question, of why, back in the day, had his fiancé returned to Asgard at all? Because of his mom? Because he was forced to? Tony knew the place made him crazy. He didn’t understand, and he truly wanted to.

Not even sure what he was doing, Tony turned to his StarkPad and opened the family financial accounts he’d set up, the one for Loki, the one for the kids—maybe just to make sure Loki would be well-funded for his traveling, as he told himself, maybe for some slightly more sneaky reason. The kids had new clothes, toys, furniture, stuff, Loki wasn’t exactly going around naked, either, but the money Tony put in, after a smallish portion of the initial deposit, hadn’t been touched. Neither had a recent, largish, deposit from NYU, a not-quite-so-substantial but quite-good-enough amount from a place called the Oakhurst Gallery or surprisingly hefty deposits from—weirdly enough—Scholastic Books and Houghton Mifflin, which, if Tony remembered right (and remembering, also his witty little quip, in times past, of “so you’re an author now?”), was another book publisher.

Add in a couple of whopping ginormous wire transfers (made from a bank, once more, in Cardiff, Wales) from an account belonging to _Ymddiriedolaeth Myrddin_ and Loki was definitely not hurting for the green.

_Ymddiriedolaeth Myrddin_? Tony wasn’t even going to guess at that one. Somehow the sight of that many “D’s” grouped together just made his brain switch off.

Clearly Loki didn’t want Tony’s filthy, stinking money (when he seemed to doing quite well, somehow, acquiring fundage on his own). In fact, from a quick glance, it looked as if Loki had swept in and taken over the majority, if not all, of the penthouse expenses, including Mrs. Ransome and all the utilities billed separately from those of the tower as a whole, plus the kids’ school fees, expenses, and insurance.

So, apparently, Loki had unvoiced issues with being a kept man, equal to his issues of not wanting to share what he’d been up to on earth for the better part of the twentieth century (besides being a codebreaker, war hero, and getting a world class education). Something to do with his family again?

He clearly hadn’t been pleased with Daddy Odin if he’d been using the name “Friggason.” A banishment? Another of the Assfather’s arbitrary punishments?

Tony knew what a lie that haughty, supercilious, superior, snarky front Loki put up sometimes could be (though other times it was just as certainly the truth). He knew Loki had been hurt in awful ways, again and again and again, that all he wanted was what anyone wanted: to be valued, taken seriously, loved wholeheartedly for exactly who he was. He knew what difficulties his fiancé had trusting or depending on anyone.

Much as Tony wanted to ask for the story, he was scared to pry, just because he hated so much to hurt Loki again.

“You are examining our accounts?” Loki said from directly behind him, causing Tony to levitate about a foot into the air, his heart going into a crazy syncopated rhythm.

“I... uh... wanted to make a surprise deposit, in case you felt like a little retail therapy while you were in London. Since I know you’re a fan of the excellent tailoring. Like a gorgeous, British-made tuxedo for the wedding, maybe?"

Rule one: don’t fib to the god of lies.

“Not exactly the truth, was that? A transfer of funds would require that you be in your own account, not mine,” said Mr. I-Have-Totally-Mastered-the-Ins-and-Outs-of-Internet-Banking.

Loki materialized on the couch beside Tony. “Though I do enjoy the tailoring, that much is true, and I do also quite intend to indulge myself to a certain extent. I was considering Darius King, however, for the wedding. Nothing too outrageous, mind you, but elegant, and unique. I would wear King well, do you not think?”

_Ha! Called it!_  Tony thought.

“Unless you would prefer me to dress in the _Jötunn_ manner,” Loki said, totally deadpan, though with a wicked sparkle in his eyes.

“Do I even dare ask?”

Loki leaned back into the cushions, crossing his legs in the most elegant way possible, and a moment later wore a patterned skin of stormy-sky blue, his hair hanging long over his shoulders again and his eyes bright red. Two whorled black horns curved from just above his temples that perfectly matched his shiny, sharp nails.

He seemed to float to his feet, at least six inches taller than his usual, already-impressive height. Adorning all this was a brief kilt (more of a loincloth, really) held on by a jeweled belt, and about thirty pounds of fine silver chains, intricately linked and studded with brilliant red gems, that draped Loki’s throat, shoulders, arms and chest.

“My god,” Tony breathed. “My god. I feel like I should get down on my knees and worship you. That’s fucking incredible.”

Loki banished the illusion with a gesture and sat down again, staring at his pajama-clad lap.

“No, it is only I,” he said, sounding almost despondent. “And that was a glamour. I did not actually change—and I did not expect you to respond so… enthusiasticaly.”

“’Only I,’ silly? What are you talking about?” Tony teased. “Oh, babe, just wait ‘til I see you in your hand-tailored Darius King. You can bet I’ll be salivating on the altar.”

“Salivating?” Loki sounded apprehensive. "Are you truly likely to do this thing? Is it held as a tradition?"

“It’s an expression, Lok.”

Loki looked relieved.

“Besides, if you wear the King tuxedo, Aunt Agnes won’t be trying to reach up your skirt when you least expect it.”

“It is not a skirt, it is a _pils_ , and you have not an Aunt Agnes.”

“I have! She’s a great-aunt on my mom’s side, only I’m not allowed to call her great-aunt because she says it makes her sound old. She’s, like, ninety-three—just a spring chicken in your years.”

Loki watched thoughtfully as Tony straightened the papers, etc., and returned them to their portfolio.

“Again, I am sorry,” he said, “That I became cross with you, Tony, at dinner, and after so despondent. My emotions are…” He raised his hands in the air. “Everywhere, in these days, it seems. Had I done what you believed, you would indeed have been right to correct me, and to teach the younglings not to do likewise. I have been secretive with myself, my past, because I was taught it was a greatly terrible thing to be _ergi_ , as I am. I did not leave England willingly. Rather, I was brought home to Asgard in shame, confined to my chambers for many years—though of course, in truth I often went wandering through the byways, leaving a double in my place until mother discovered my subterfuge. Even she, who was so often my champion, was ashamed of me. She believed I could be a _Seiðmaður_ without being _ergi_ , but she was wrong. It is a great shame for a mother to raise an _ergi_ son. Often she is blamed for his ways. My mother tried many times to correct me, both by magic and reproof.”

“So if your mom…”

“My mother loved me greatly, Tony. Never less so for what I was. She instructed and encouraged me always in the ways of magic and learning, and defended me often against my… against Odin. It was only my choice of company she could not approve.”

“Did not approve,” Tony said.

“I beg pardon?”

“She _did_ not approve. She could have. She _chose_ not to.”

“I…” Loki began. He looked paler even than usual, and incredibly fragile.

Tony took his hand carefully, folding it between his own, mindful of Loki’s still-often-painful joints. “You know, there’s probably plenty of things wrong with both you and me, but who we love isn’t one of them.”

Loki turned his face away. "My mother loved and cared for me greatly.”

“Of course she did, Lok. Of course she did. Just sometime in her life she got taught stupid things, the way we all do.”

Loki turned, pressing his face into Tony’s shoulder, whispering, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, _hjarta minn_.”

“Me too, babe. I think we both need to start talking about things.”

"Agreed," Loki told him--but he still didn't exactly look happy,

Eventually, being who they were, they got restless, and Tony started pawing through the portfolio again. He pulled out a couple flat, shiny wooden boxes at random. “Aha, the famous medals!"

“Wounded in the line of duty.” Loki flicked an indifferent index finger at the first.

“Also known as having a piece of metal the size of Steve’s hand plant itself in your chest? You know, he really liked you. I might even go so far as to use the term ‘man-crush.’”

“He does not like me now,” Loki said flatly.

“Okay, right. Awkward.” Tony popped open the second box.

“The highest honor afforded an officer in the king’s armed forces—I’ve quite forgotten what it was called. The something-cross, I suppose, as they all are.” Loki stretched, lacing his fingers together behind his head. “Presented to me by his majesty at an excruciatingly dull afternoon tea. I’m afraid I relieved my boredom somewhat by shamelessly romancing my future queen. She was quite a shapely girl then, even in her uniform, and I, of course, was dashingly handsome in mine. She became so unnerved by my presence she actually spilled an entire cup of Darjeeling on me, and was scolded by her mum.”

“But you consoled her, of course,” Tony said drily. He pulled out the little photograph. “For dashingly handsome, I present Exhibit A.” Loki pulled back a little, studying it, his brow furrowed.

“I had forgotten the photograph existed,” he said softly, and his eyes took on that slightly glisteny thing they sometimes did, as his fingertips ghosted over the other man’s image.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Tony told him, when what he really wanted to say was, _Did you love him more than you love me_?

“We were together through long years,” Loki half-answered his question, “And at the end…”

Whatever Loki had meant to say, he cut off abruptly.

“I desire to snack. Would you like anything?”

“I’m okay.”

Loki gave him a half shrug, along with a sideways glance that could have meant a number of things—but probably meant exactly what Tony thought. His fiance made a little circle with his index finger and another ounce of single malt poured into Tony’s glass.

Loki crossed to the kitchen, returning with a carton of goat’s milk tucked under one arm, a jar of what looked like peanut butter and a spoon in his hand.

“Loki…”

“It is sunflower, not peanut.” Loki flashed the label. “I am hungry, not yet overcome by madness.”

He dug in his spoon. His face, as he slowly licked seed butter off the metal could only be described as orgasmic. He chased it with what had to be half the carton of milk. That was certainly something different.

Tony sipped the scotch to keep him company. Maybe for courage too, truth be told--it had been quite the evening of " _what the hells?_ "

“Let’s say you had a busy twentieth century,” he said.

Loki laughed softly, also a little sadly. He licked his way through another massive spoonful of sunflower butter. His tongue, even in the current situation, should have been declared illegal.

“Some of it was not bad.”

That made Tony feel sad too for some reason. He tossed back the last of his scotch. “It’s not that I want to pry all at once into your personal shit. I just want to know you better. You look like you’ve been up to some cool stuff lately.”

Loki polished off the milk and set the empty carton on the coffee table.

“The books, I presume you mean, and the art at the Oakhurst?”

“Yeah. Those. I’d love to hear about them, you know. And I can’t believe you just drank out of the carton. You. I thought your head would explode before you did something like that.”

“I am not so…” Loki’s hand waved in the air, searching for the word. “Persnickety?” He screwed the lid back onto his jar and licked his spoon just a little cleaner. “Yes, persnickety. Read the books on your StarkPad; they’ve languished there for weeks since I first hinted. And I did invite you to my exhibition at the Oakhurst. You said you would attend.”

“But I didn’t, obviously.”

“You and Bruce became involved in an experiment in his laboratory, and when I reminded you, you waved a ‘ _go away, Loki_ ’ hand at me.”

Loki grinned, his emerald eyes sparkling. He was clearly making mischief, not hurt or angry. “I attended with Kurt and his dear friend Ororo, who is a tall and beautiful lady of African extraction. I straightened and spiked my hair, and wore eyeliner, and was surpassingly gorgeous. We were quite a sensation. The papers recorded the event.”

Loki’s long arm reached past him, elegant fingers making a few quick taps on Tony’s StarkPad. In the color photo Kurt’s friend Ororo stood at nearly Loki’s height (taller if you counted her skyhigh snow-white Mohawk). Kurt looked charming as usual, only elegant, in a tux perfectly cut for his unique physiology and a silver-headed cane, because of the still-to-be-corrected heroism-related foot-mangling from on board the fauxlicarrier.

And Loki… Loki looked like fucking Ziggy Stardust. He out-rock starred 70’s era Bowie.

“I studied images of a man called David Jones, who renamed himself Bowie, for inspiration on my look. Do you know him Tony?”

“Actually, yes, because I haven’t spent the last forty years in a cave.”

“Your sarcasm is wasted on me,” Loki said, but he still didn’t sound mad, only teasing. “I kissed you goodbye, dressed so, do you not remember? I said unto to you, ‘if you love science so much, why do you not marry it?’ which is a variation on a quip popular at the children’s school.”

“That one probably dates back to the early days of both schools—or at least kids gathered in groups--and marriages. What did I say?”

“I believe you grunted,” Loki answered, laughing, bending a little to kiss Tony’s temple. “You would most certainly have loathed the whole affair, whereas the three of us were brilliant, and I sold a million paintings—which is Midgardian hyperbole, in truth the number was thirteen, which is my lucky number only—and gained five commissions to be completed at my leisure, one to hang in the mayor’s mansion. I was kissed on the mouth a number of times by very attractive mortals, both male and female, and if anyone was rude to me I was allowed to be snarkily witty back at them, because thus artists behave.”

“You really had fun.”

“I truly did,” Loki answered, “Because Lo Stark, artist and author, who comports himself like David Bowie, is talented, witty, and desirable. He is not to be confused with Dr. Loki Friggason, brilliant, serious and respected. And most especially, neither of them are Loki, Sometime of Asgard.”

His voice dropped low, breaking slightly. “Failure, villain, murderer, criminal, most hated of the hated. I heard a song on the Pandora-box, Tony... No. No, not Pandora-Box. Only ‘Pandora,’ yes?”

Tony nodded. Loki’s eyes had widened again, and it hit Tony suddenly how nervous Loki was about saying the wrong thing, about exposing any gaps in his façade. It was like his whole life had turned into an endless pop quiz administered by an unforgiving teacher, on which he was always required to score 100%.

His hands had started to shake again.

Tony put his own hands over them, holding gently, once again, because of those damn battered joints.

“Take a breath, babe, then tell me. It doesn’t really matter if you say ‘Pandora’ or ‘PandoraBox,’ I get what you mean.”

Loki’s chin lowered slightly and his eyes closed, lashes jet black against alabaster. Carefully, he breathed himself back from the edge.

“Thank you,” he said at last, softly. “I am also like the words of another song, at times, to paraphrase and change the gender in question, ‘He has trouble acting normal when he’s nervous.’”

So Loki was working his way through 90’s College-Oriented-Rock as well as David Bowie. Interesting.

Tony brushed the backs of his fingers against Loki’s slightly-flushed cheek. “It’s okay, gorgeous. You’re okay. You’re fine.”

“The song I’d meant to reference said, ‘We all invent ourselves.’ I am in the process of inventing myself, Tony, in hopes no one, in time, will remember Loki of Asgard, save perhaps S.H.I.E.L.D. and your Avengers. And if not remembered, perhaps he can die entirely. It is the way of Ragnarok, and the _Nornir_ , and their Cycles. It is the way ancient Hela, Helheimr’s Queen, is daughter of a Loki who was, and is, me and not me, and our lovely Hela is the same as she, yet entirely different.”

“At the moment, babe, I’m not sure if I’ve had too much to drink for that explanation, if it’s just too late at night, or if I still wouldn't understand if I was totally sober. Anyway, I kinda like Loki of Asgard. I kinda fell in love with him, so I hope he doesn’t go away completely. However, it would be really, really great if Dr. Tony Stark could accompany his fiancé, the extremely clever and handsome Dr. Loki Friggason, to London and Wales, if he’ll have me. We could cancel your commercial flight and take the StarkJet. It’s more comfortable, and there’s even a bed. We could… enjoy each other’s company.”

“You would do that for me? Leave your workshop?” Loki sounded so delighted Tony couldn’t help but find it adorable.

They were both still grinning like fools when Loki picked up his used spoon.

“Did you cause the dishwasher to run, Tony?”

Tony laughed. “Yeah, my housekeeping skills are so bad I scared it away. Actually, though, yes, I did run it after dinner.”

Tony picked up the empty milk carton. “Still hungry? Can I get you anything else?”

“Have we apples? No, grapes. Grapes would be delightful.” Tony collected a bowl from the cupboard and filled it with plump red grapes from the fridge, popping a couple in his own mouth for good measure. The spoon flew past him and began to rinse itself at the sink.

“You’re going to like these, babe. Pretty damn delish.” Tony grinned, but his grin faded as he caught a muttered, _“ó fjandinn_ ,” which he’d learned early on was SpaceViking for “Fuck!” (or possibly "hell" or "damn"--maybe even all three) Tony rubbernecked into the living room and saw Loki with an actual river of blood flowing into his hand and down the front of his shirt. He forgot about the grapes and grabbed a nearly-full box of tissues instead, pinching Loki’s nose shut with a handful and tipping his head forward to his lap.

Loki made a wordless cry of protest and shot a long arm out for the wastebasket that was lurking beside one of the armchairs.

“Oh, baby, that too? You didn’t say you were feeling sick.” Tony shifted to the coffee table, switching to a clean fistful of tissues as his fiancé puked, then damming up the river again. It took practically the whole box to get the bleeding stopped, and the wastebasket was halfway filled—Tony couldn’t even figure out where it all had come from.

Loki flopped back into the cushions.

“Do you want me to just tuck you in here, or do you want to attempt the bedroom? I’ll stay with you either way, if you want me.”

“I will always want you, Tony,” Loki said quietly, hauling himself to his feet. He carried the wastebasket at arm’s length to the bathroom by the kitchen, and because he didn’t have it in him to just do a quick dump and rinse like a normal deathly-ill person, Tony heard the sounds of scrubbing and disinfecting (and gagging and retching).

“Babe, leave it,” he called, “The cleaning staff can finish up in the morning.”

But then he realized what Loki was doing—besides having very particular ideas about what was and was not appropriate to leave for others to clean up after him—he was covering up the fact that he was having a private cry.

Tony had learned early on that having actual, visible emotions (other than anger) was not what one did in Asgard. And not the least of that, aside from having survived torture and near death and become the parent of triplets who literally had to tear their way out of his body, and having a (mostly) horrible family, being exiled from his home and having an (often) insensitive fiancé, he’d felt completely shitty for months and the thing he loved best in the world, that he was best at, his magic, had just about made him bleed to death. Because he’d remote-rinsed a spoon in the sink.

Tony bagged up the used tissues and tossed them. He washed his hands with soap and water, but it wasn’t like Loki had rabies. His fiancé, meanwhile, had gone on to doing a Lady Macbeth in the bathroom, with the scrub brush and the extra-strong soap, no less.

Poor Loki, with his beyond-fair skin, when he really full-on cried he looked streaky and blotchy and just über-miserable. Tony put his arms around him from behind, wishing he came up a little higher than Loki’s shoulder blades.

“You know, there’s a proper place to do that.”

Loki glanced from the scrub brush to his reddened hands.

“No, I mean if you’re sad and you have someone who loves you as much as I love you, then you curl up in his arms and you tell him what’s going on. What do you think I’m going to do? Mock you if you cry in front of me?”

“I do not weep.” Loki looked sideways, ducking his head. “It is only an aftereffect of feeling very suddenly and violently unwell. If I am _kvenlegur_ , ignore me.”

“What is that? Emotional? See, the place where you’re having a problem is thinking you’re still in Asgard, when you’re not. Because here in _casa_ Stark anything you think, feel, or are is perfectly fine. You’re my amazing Loki. You’re perfect. Now let’s get you to bed, okay?”

He steered Loki into the bedroom, expecting him to collapse straight into bed, but he headed through to the bathroom instead.

“Forgive me, Tony, I am very well now, but my mouth is disgusting. I can’t sleep like this.” He put toothpaste on his toothbrush and started brushing enthusiastically, sighing when he was finished, “That is so very much better.”

“And how about you? Are you feeling very much better?”

“Oh, yes.” Loki smiled a little shakily, and took a perch on the side of the tub, knees sticking practically up to his shoulders and even then looking graceful and exotic.

“I believe, by these latest signs…” he began thoughtfully. “Tony, this is troubling, and I know not how to say the words. We may have made a mistake.”

One look at his fiancé’s obvious nervousness and a million terrifying possibilities flashed through Tony’s mind, culminating in the worst of all—that this really was it, despite how much they loved each other, and their intense conversations earlier, he’d stepped out of bounds for the last time and despite how kind he was being about it, Loki totally was dumping his aggravating ass.

There was a spin of natural teak and honey-colored marble around his head, maybe some cartoon birds tweeting. Tony didn’t even feel his knees fold. He did, however, feel Loki support him.

When his eyes shot open three seconds later, his brain still screaming, _No no no no!_  he appeared to be lying on his back on the bathroom floor, where he kind of remembered his fiancé lowering him, his head in Loki’s lap, his feet propped on the edge of the tub while Loki rubbed his wrists gently.

“I imagined that going rather better,” Loki said, all big green eyes and a little tremble at the corners of his mouth, a cloud of soft black hair fluffed out around his face.

“Sorry, I’m never going to take it better,” Tony told him. “Just thinking about it makes me feel crazy. Desperate. I know I’m supposed to be a grown up in these situations, but I can’t be okay with it, Loki.”

“I see.” Loki stroked Tony’s hair gently, lovingly. There were new calluses on his fingertips, and Tony wondered where they’d come from. His voice sounded tired and sad when he continued. “We are in difficulties, then.”

“Worse than I’d thought, I guess.”

“I had thought… I believed you loved the children, and so this one, being ours--even if not planned--would yet be…”

“Wait! Rewind. What?”

“I thought you would not mind that I am with child, even though we had not planned for one--or even believed, between us, that this consideration could be..." He made a vague sort of hand gesture between their two bodies. "A consideration. Truly, beloved, I pray you believe this was no act of deception on my part, to bind you unwillingly to me by a blood tie.  Had I but known, we must surely have made use of your Midgardian prophylactics. It may be, though, I have tried your trust enough today.”

Loki raised him carefully to a sitting position, then distanced himself, gazing down at Tony with dangerous, unreadable eyes.

“You believed I meant to discontinue our betrothal after what has passed between us through this evening? What a fickle creature you take me for!”

“Wait again! You’re telling me you’re going to have a baby? Our baby?”

Loki glared down at him from his imperious height. “I believe that is what I said, yes. I am hungry,” he announced abruptly, and left the bathroom.

Tony hauled himself upright, not even minding the dizzy rush that ran from his head to his toes. He and Loki…?

He and Loki! It wasn’t something he’d thought about, but all of a sudden he couldn’t remember ever being so happy. And this even though things were undeniably less than perfect at the moment between them, as they tried to find their ways.

He caught up to Loki in the kitchen, just polishing off the grapes and moving on to a sack of baby carrots, At least his fiancé appeared to be a healthy pregnancy snacker, although Loki was going through those carrots like a competitive eater. It was slightly frightening, actually.

“I beg your pardon?” Loki asked, with a slightly supercilious look.

“Can I find you something slightly more filling? There’s still the leftover pasta salad that didn't fit in the serving bowl. Or… Well, there’s gotta be something. There always is. At the moment I’m having flashbacks to the killer Rabbit of Caerbannog in Monty Python and it’s freaking me out a little.”

Loki laughed. “’Lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.’" He set down the plastic bag to wrap both arms around Tony’s body, trapping him against the kitchen island, doing a slow, sensual grind as he claimed Tony’s mouth in a long and slightly carrot-flavored kiss.

“Let me guess,” Tony said when they broke apart. “Kurt’s a Monty Python fan?”

“’Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!’” Loki replied, eyes sparkling with fun.

“Little one,” he said, then, running a hand down his still-more-than-slightly inward-curving belly. “Your mother was a _Jӧtunn_ , and your father works in laboratories. You were conceived in great love between us.” He glanced up at Tony. “You were loved from the very moment we felt you _Kveikja_ within me, and you will be loved, ever and always. Yes, Tony? Ever and always?”

“Yes, Lok! God, yes!” Tony wondered if it was possible to be deeply in shock and over the moon with joy at the same time. Loki drew Tony after him into the bedroom, shutting off the lights, sliding between the sheets.

They snuggled up close together, both heads on one pillow, Tony’s hand on Loki’s belly, as if he could already feel their child there.

“Would you choose to feel him?” Loki asked.

“Would I choose to? Hell, yeah!” He gave Loki’s ass a rub and a gentle squeeze. “Isn’t he just little, though? Don’t you have some crazy long gestation time? Like a year?”

“He is small still, yes, but he has kindled, the spark of his self united to the physical. It is soon to be certain, but I believe I sense _seiðr_ within, and something too of… _járnið Miðgarð_. What is that? I am trying to discover your English words, Tony. The Iron of Midgard. Yes, the iron of Earth.“

“Son of Iron Man,“ Tony said.

"Son of Iron Man,“ Loki echoed with delight. "I am so very pleased this news has brought you happiness, Tony."

“And what news is it again that‘s taking you to England, babe?“

"It is...“ Loki snuggled closer, clearly troubled, just as clearly seeking comfort and security as Tony‘s warmth. "A thing discovered. Perhaps a thing of Myrddin’s, it may be. Perhaps a thing Myrddin had hidden, which might make the thing hidden all the more dangerous.”

Tony listened so carefully to Loki’s pronunciation of what he guessed was a Welsh name: the soft furry flip Loki’s tongue gave the “r” sound, the whispery “th” sound, that he had a sudden insight corresponded to the double-d he’d seen in the written name. “Myrddin Wyllt, right? As in the letter?”

“It’s not ‘wilt’ as in wilted lettuce, Tony. It’s Wyllt.” Loki made a little flipped-hissy-flutey sound, with his tongue-tip on the roof of his mouth, where the double-l should be.

“So seriously what we’ve learned here is that linguistics definitely isn’t my thing, and you had a Welsh friend whose name is impossible to say without spitting in someone’s face. Except when you say it, that is. You make it sound sexy.”

“Erotic, Myrddin would have said.” Loki sounded sad, or all least deeply nostalgic. “Or _pryfoclyd_ , I suppose. That is ‘provocative,’ in his tongue.”

“Was he a _Societatem Aeterni_ kind of guy, like you? Did he have a big gold seal?”

“Yes.” Loki sighed. "The greatest of the _Societatem Aeterni_ 'guys,' some might say _._ “

"You were lovers for a long time.”

“Yes.”

Tony could hear the smile in his voice.

“We’re you aware I had a type? Short, brilliant…” Loki ran his fingers through Tony’s messy not-quite-curls. “Reprehensively untidy hair. Quite vain. Able to wield magic.”

“Holy shit,” Tony said, “You say the name weird—okay, weird for the way I say it, which I’m sure means you’re right and I’m wrong--but you’re talking about Merlin. You and…”

Abruptly, he stopped his almost incredulous laughter, seeing that Loki had gone literally translucent with sorrow, alive with a soft greenish-gold light. It was beautiful and disturbing at the same time.

“Oh, babe,” Tony said. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve already made you talk too much tonight. You just need to be my little spoon, and be loved.”

“I make a ridiculous little spoon,” Loki grumped. “I am simply too ungainly.”

But Tony shifted into position and put his arms around him from behind, holding Loki close and warmly. “Dunno, Lok. You seem pretty gainly to me. Which is to say perfect, as far as I’m concerned. And I am so sorry I upset you earlier with the things I said. Maybe I’ve always been doing that, with everyone, and you were the first person with the balls to call me on it. Anyway, I love you for always.”

“I do have balls,” Loki answered sleepily, “Among other things. And I shall love you longer than always, _hjarta hjarta minn_.”

“You know you’re the heart of my heart too,” Tony whispered in his lover’s ear, but Loki was already sleeping.


	2. Transatlantic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Loki let the children and their friends know that a baby Stark is expected, but even with that news the Minister has no intention of letting Loki off the hook. When the couple arrive in London, Loki meets an old friend and Tony forgets that it's often best to keep your thoughts to yourself, especially when your fiance is a mind-reading mage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merlot is a red variety often described as a good Sherlock.
> 
> "Exit, stage left!" was a catchphrase of Snagglepuss, a pink mountain lion who wanted to be a stage actor. The Hanna-Barbera cartoon, also called _Snagglepuss,_ was first shown in 1959.
> 
> A few translations:
> 
>  _Ekki snerta það, ekki snerta það, er Það á hjarta mínu! Þú drepur mig ef þú gerir. Á miskunn þinni,_ Captain Rogers.=Do not touch it, do not touch it, it is in my heart!  
>  You kill me if you do. By your mercy, Captain Rogers.
> 
>  _Ég get ekki yfirgefa hann einn. Ég get það ekki. Ekki spyrja hana ekki um mig_ =I cannot leave him alone. I cannot. Do not ask her about me.
> 
>  _og fjandinn Alföðr fyrir grimmd hans_ =damn the Allfather for his cruelty

* * *

“Tony?” Loki stopped him in the hall, on his way to locate Hela’s hairbrush, which had somehow gone missing, despite the fact that Hela always put her things away, and always in the exact same places. If Tony didn’t know better, he’d have suspected a grooming-aid poltergeist haunted the penthouse. It was a matter of life or death, too. Just like her _Pabbi’s_ , Hela’s morning hair defied description. And gravity.

“Yeah, babe?” Tony answered, giving his fiancé a grin, nudging Hela (who in the midst of the giant storm-cloud hovering over her head was being dramatic), on her way with the order, “Keep looking, sweetie pie, it hasn’t disappeared off the face of the earth. You’ll find it.”

“First, a kiss?” Loki shifted an enthusiastically wriggling Fen from under his left arm to under his right. As on most mornings, Fen had woken up not only bursting with energy but channeling his inner Wild Thing. He was turning himself upside down, squirming determinedly, trying his best to make a break for freedom even as Loki held him.

Tony put his hand on the top of the boy’s head. “Be still, little man, I’m kissing your _Pabbi_.”

Their lips touched gently, warmly, Loki leaning against him for an extended moment before they parted, as if drawing strength from him. He looked exhausted, whiter than Hela, with dark circles under his eyes. Tony could see the pulse thrumming in his throat.

“Nope. Uh-unh,” Tony said. “No way I’m making you wrangle Mischief Junior this morning. Go lie down on the couch until Hela’s found her brush, then you can maybe deal with the hairsplosion instead, if you’re up to it. If you’re not, I’ll deal.”

Loki visibly sagged with relief as Tony took Fen from him. “You are certain? It is not too much to ask?”

“Gods, no. You look like you’re about to fall over, babe. Can I get you anything?” Tony walked his fiancé over to the sofa, his free hand on Loki’s back for steadying purposes.

At that moment, Jöri set a can of ginger ale with a green-striped paper straw on the coffee table, smiling shyly. “I brought this for you, _Pabbi_.”

“What a sweet son,” Tony said. “Ten points to Ravenclaw!”

“Sweetling, you have anticipated my every need.” Loki gave his son’s cheek a quick caress, then took a long drink from the soda before collapsing into the cushions with a sigh. “Thank you for your kindness, family, and my greatest apologies, Tony, for adding to your morning burdens.”

“Hey, it’s no burden.” He stroked back Loki’s hair, which felt sweaty, though he knew his fiancé had just showered. His skin, along with being dead white, seemed chilly and clammy. Besides which, the fact that Loki was still in his pj’s instead of impeccably dressed for the day told him pretty much everything he needed to know about how his love was feeling.

“Jör, toss the throw blanket over your _Pabbi_ , will you, please? Hela, come out here for a sec.”

Their daughter—Tony couldn’t help but think of her that way, even though the adoption papers were pending until after the wedding—reappeared from parts unknown, a questioning look on her pale and perfect face.

Loki huddled under the blanket, taking a few more gulps of soda as Jöri held the can for him.

Tony left his warm hand resting on his fiancé's forehead. “Okay, major news flash, guys. First off, I wanted you to know that your _Pabbi’s_ okay, he’s not sick again, all right? So, no worrying. What is going on, though, is that he’s busy making a new little brother for you, which means--especially at first--that he might not feel so super good, like he doesn't this morning. A person’s body has to change to make a good place for a baby to grow, and that’s not always the most comfortable thing in the world for the person growing the baby. Your _Pabbi’s_ going to need lots of extra rest, because it’s really hard work, and right now his tummy feels very upset too. Let’s be really kind to him, and to each other? You don’t want your little brother thinking we’re some kind of crankypants family, right?”

“Did you and _Pabbi_ make the baby together?” Jöri asked softly. “So he’ll be your real son?”

Poor kid, Tony thought. Jöri and Hela both knew who their bio-dad was, and how they’d come about, more or less. Not the gory details, obviously, but they’d definitely caught on that Baldr wasn’t a great person, that he’d hurt their _Pabbi_ badly. Whenever the subject came up, Loki always stressed how much the kids meant to him, how they were his world and had always been wanted, how much he and Tony loved them, how precious they were, however they’d been begotten (now there was a Loki word).

Despite all that, it was still the opposite of comfortable information, especially when they woke up in the night hearing Loki go through screaming night terrors about his time as a prisoner in Latveria.

Daytimes he could, and did, control—night-times were another matter entirely.

“Hey, I’m afraid you and Fen are gonna beat Tony, Junior here across the line in the real son thing,” Tony said. “Remember those adoption papers we showed you? They say ‘Jöri is my real son’ all over them, and Fen is my real son, and Hela is my real daughter. In the eyes of the law there’s absolutely no difference, and in my eyes either. You gonna argue with the law, kiddo?”

“No,” Jöri said slowly.

“Me neither. So next month your _Pabbi_ and I get married, then right after we go to court and everything gets made official, and you’re my number one son for ever and ever. The only difference is this poor kid has a fifty-fifty chance of looking like me instead of like your gorgeous _Pabbi_. Do you think he’ll have a beard? Maybe just a little one?”

Jöri giggled.

“We clear, kiddo?”

Jöri gave a solemn nod.

Tony shifted wriggling Fen to his shoulder. “So I’m gonna go hose down your brother. Will you help your _Pabbi_ out if he needs something, or come and get me if there’s anything over your head?”

Another nod.

“That’s my boy,” Tony told him, and for just a minute felt weird and throat-lumpy. When he was Jöri’s size he would have given anything in the world to hear his old man say those words.

Anything.

By the time you hit your forties, it's kind of a little bit late for that shit.  The mere thought of that fucking tape Howard left behind still tended to irritate him.

Loki touched Tony’s wrist lightly, a touch full of love, comfort, understanding.

 _Thank you_ , Loki's eyes said then, before he murmured drowsily. “Hela, have you looked on my nightstand?”

A minute later, he followed that question with, “Logan and Kurt will arrive within the quarter hour.”

Loki had arranged for Kurt and Logan to move temporarily into the penthouse to watch the kids while they were away, with their friend Kitty Pryde as a backup, as well as Thor, of course—he’d thought it would be less disruptive for the kids, and really Tony had to agree—at the same it pissed him off that with a tower full of earth’s supposed greatest heroes, there was no one except Loki’s own brother he could rely on to step up in a pinch, in any concrete way. That he had to bring in the X-Men instead, just like when Loki was first back from S.H.I.E.L.D. and had been so ill.

Back then their helpers had been Kurt and Logan, Hank and Kitty, a red-headed girl called Rachel and an auburn-haired girl with a Southern accent and the unlikely name of Rogue, who Kurt, weirdly enough, had introduced as his sister.  Explain that one.

All of them X-Men, or former X-Men, all of them there because Kurt gave the call, and without question they’d trusted his judgment and his word that this was something that needed doing. As opposed to his own fucking team, who bitched and debated endlessly, who were all about their own judgments, and trusted nothing.

Steve, it had to be said, at least dropped by the penthouse now and then to inquire after Loki’s health.

From the others? Goddamn radio silence at best, otherwise snide remarks.

Rhodey wasn’t even speaking to him.

The only friends Tony had who were willing to help out with anything were his old stalwarts, Happy and Pepper, and both of them, great as they were, tended to be more the "let's go to Coney Island!" or "let's take a trip to the zoo!" (in Hap’s case), or "The Children’s Symphony is fun and educational" or "high tea and a shopping date sure would be fun" (in Pep’s) kind of honorary uncle and aunt. They loved the kids, they were good with them, but it wasn’t a long-haul kind of thing, like cleaning Fen up if he had an accident, or making sure Jöri didn’t eat any nuts (and being ready with the modified epi-pen Hank had put together for him), or making sure Hela didn’t ride roughshod over everyone else in her quest for world domination.

Hap _had_ run countless errands and been helpful to their family in a million ways. Pepper spent hours reading to Loki, or even just sitting with him and holding his hand when he was so sick, and suffering badly from having been deprived of caring companionship for so long.

Everybody had strengths and weaknesses.

So it was the young blue mutant and his gruff older partner Tony found himself turning to again and again, and Tony had to admit he couldn’t have asked for better friends. With them on board, he had nothing to worry about where the kids were concerned, and they were fine with staying at the tower for the duration.

At the very least, it was bound to be easier getting the triplets to school on time, with the Stark Academy only an elevator ride away on Floor 10.

For Jöri and Hela mornings weren’t ever a problem—they were almost unnaturally perfect when it came to things like showering, putting on their uniforms, making their beds and organizing their book bags. When told to eat breakfast, they ate breakfast, when told to brush their teeth, they did so, promptly and perfectly.

And then there was Fen, the Morning Monster, who was nothing but one small bundle of A.M. trouble from start to finish. He wasn’t fond of showers and tended to freak out when water blasted onto his head. He was cagey when it came to hiding and lightning quick, and the more uproar he caused the more hilarious he seemed to find it.

He’d usually do better once fully awake and ballasted with breakfast, but getting him back on task and to that point could be challenging indeed. Tony frankly couldn’t understand how Loki did it, morning after morning. He himself was pretty much an abject failure when it came to morning Fen-control—he always seemed to lose focus and then any grip on the situation, which led to frustration, which led to even more bouncing-off-the-walls from Fenrir.

He was just thankful Thor came up to cook and have breakfast with the family most mornings, leaving Tony usually with only the calmer two to wrangle and no meal-producing duties.

That morning, however, with everything stood on its head, Tony only got a wriggling Fen into the tub by actually skinning him out of his pajamas while the boy was still draped over his shoulder and plunging him directly into the water. He managed to get him scrubbed and shampooed, but made the mistake of turning away to grab a washcloth when Fen whined, “Soap! Soap!” and began to rub his eyes.

It was then Fen made his break for freedom, surging over the side of the tub and deluging Tony with half the soapy bathwater in the process.

Tony was still blinking and gasping when his little mischief-maker ran for it.

“Fenrir Lokison!” Tony yelled after him, but it was no use, Fen was going for the Olympic record.

For a stocky little guy he could move like a gazelle.

“Belovéd, did you need…?” Loki began, sitting up, then fell back again, flinging an arm across his eyes. He was very carefully not sending, not wanting to make anyone else miserable, but it still leaked through how comprehensively, cripplingly nauseated he felt.

Tony wished he had a minute to spare to tend to him, or even to change out of his own sopping clothes, but he still had the world record holder in the nude wet sprint to chase down.

And, of course, at that moment Jöri also decided to be needy. He was a sensitive kid, and seeing his _Pabbi_ so obviously under the weather, along with the thought that they were both going a long way away, for a not-quite-definite-time, suddenly got to him. He crawled up on top of Loki, clinging and crying soundlessly.

“Leave your _Pabbi_ alone,” Tony started to snap, but conquered the impulse just in time. Jör was only a little boy, and a worrier to boot. Biting his head off for having a kid’s needs would help absolutely nothing, and might just screw up their relationship in ways he didn’t ever want to discover.

“Pretty please, Empress, would you lend a hand with your brother?” Tony asked Hela as she emerged from the master bedroom, hairbrush and a tube of styling product in hand.

“Which one?” she asked.

Fen had just shot by her in what was probably lap ten around the penthouse. Short of a flying tackle he was looking well-nigh impossible to catch. If Doom’s death ray ever wore off, Master Fenrir Lokison Stark had definite potential as a shoo-in for a full-ride football scholarship to the university of his choice about twelve years in his future.

The big “if.”

Tony cut off the thought promptly. He wasn’t going to hurt Loki by thinking that kind of thing and having him overhear, not when Loki grieved for what had happened to Fen so deeply and constantly.

If Tony had just been able to dismantle that damn machine even a little faster, would that have helped their son? Would it have helped Loki? Would he have his healing and, therefore, his magic back again?

Tony would never know.

He just wished he’d done better, that his hands had been quicker, his brain more insightful.

Sadly, wishes only changed things in fairy tales.

A stern pronouncement in SpaceViking sounded suddenly inside everyone’s heads: the voice of _Pabbi_ had spoken. The law was laid down.

Even so, Fenrir only slowed momentarily, and didn’t stop. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He certainly didn’t look guilty—more insanely pleased with himself.

“I’ll take Jöri, shall I?” Hela suggested. She gently pried her silver-haired brother away from his limpet-like cling to their _Pabbi’s_ t-shirt,  showing him a sheaf of colorful papers she’d pulled from her book bag. Quick as lightning, her slender fingers folded a small, green origami dragon.

“We’re learning it in art, Jör,” she said, “But the secret is, it’s really geometry. Just shapes and angles, see?”

Hela rapidly folded a shiny silver dolphin and Jöri was hooked. The two sat side by side in the big chair, Hela’s origami book spread open on the ottoman, Jöri rattling off strings of numbers as his fingers flew.

Loki gave a sigh of relief.

 _You doing okay, babe?_ Tony sent gently.

Very well, belovéd, Loki lied through his teeth.

_Would some dry toast or crackers or something help?_

_Please, nothing at this time, thank you, Loki sent._

At that point, as Fen eeled by a still-soaking-wet and increasingly frustrated Tony yet again, the doorbell rang, and he paused to let in their friends.

Logan, of course, took one look at Tony’s dripping form and laughed loudly, if sympathetically. “Kid one, genius nothing,” he said.

Fen ran by for lap eleven, but Kurt’s tail shot out like a rattlesnake to lasso the little boy and haul him in, flipping him, giggling, into Logan’s waiting arms. Fen, of course, changed immediately into his sweet, docile self, with not a trace of Wild Thing to be found anywhere about his person.

Still laughing, Logan clapped Tony’s shoulder. “Mornin’, Stark. The enemy a little too much for you today? Good thing the X-Men are on the case.”

Kurt tried very hard to look as if he didn’t want to laugh too, as Logan threw a giggling Fen over his shoulder and stalked away to the boy’s bedroom. “Where’s Loki?”

A pale and slightly trembling hand waved over the back over the couch.

Kurt crutched quickly in that direction. He was still healing from the biomechanical reconstructive surgery done on his right foot (the one he’d gotten mangled the previous year, leading their escape from a deathtrap cell in the fauxlicarrier). Tony was behind the mechanical part of the equation, Hank McCoy behind the bio, and they were both rather pleased with their contributions.

McCoy had proved easier to work with than Tony expected, though the sight of his huge blue self hanging upside down from the ceiling, barefoot, while wearing a three piece suit, still proved slightly unnerving.

McCoy said it helped him think. Tony guessed he was just glad the mutant doctor didn’t take off his pants to speed his thought processes, like Thor’s bud (and Loki’s former minion), Dr. Erik Selvig, apparently did. Though equally blue, McCoy was an entirely different beast (pun intended) than Kurt, who Tony often did laps with in the pool. As advertised by the skin-tight uniform and the equally skin-tight Speedo he wore for serious swimming, Kurt was every-inch-gorgeous.

And yes, Tony had peeked. He was human. Kurt really was indigo and unusually shapely everywhere.

Tony felt absolutely no desire, however, to see McCoy’s Sasquatch-sized junk swingin’ in the breeze, under any circumstances.

“Lo, what’s wrong?” Kurt went instantly from smothering laughter to deeply concerned. He pressed his palm to Loki’s forehead tenderly. “You feel about the right temperature. Very clammy, though. And green works better for you as a color you wear than as a skin tone. At the moment you look like the Wicked Witch of the West.”

He actually got a weak little laugh out of Loki for that one, Tony was glad to hear.

Kurt being Kurt, he didn’t carefully limp his way around the sofa to get closer like a normal person. Instead he tossed the crutches into the air, did a sudden backflip over the couch and landed seated on the coffee table, just to the right of the soda can. He caught the crutches on the way down, leaning them neatly against the table.

“Show off,” Tony said.

Kurt grinned sunnily. It was something he freely admitted—he’d been a circus performer since childhood and an unrepentant showman at least that long, with an unrivaled control over his own body, including that snappy tail. He’d probably still be headlining with a circus somewhere if a prize asshole by the name of Jardine hadn’t decided to demote him from star acrobat to caged and chained circus freak—and if, on his escape, he hadn’t been chased by villagers with torches and pitchforks, who thought he was a demon.

Which he was—half-demon anyway—but still the sweetest, kindest, most forgiving guy Tony knew, and probably the one person in the Nine Realms Loki counted on to never, ever hurt him.

Everyone had agreed Kurt’s recovery process would be greatly enhanced by only having to ride herd on Loki’s three relatively well-behaved and helpful children (morning version of Fen aside), rather than a screaming Banshee pack of mutant miscreants—because Logan may have been Headmaster of the Jean Grey School, but Kurt was definitely Chief Peacekeeper and Problem-solver, as well as wearing his official hats of Drama and Literature teacher and Fencing and Gymnastics Coach.

“How’s the foot, Kurt?” Tony asked.

“ _Sehr gut_ , very good indeed now, with almost no pain. Hank has even started me on some gentle exercises, stretches and such. He has very high hopes for a full recovery. I must thank you again for your contributions, _lieber Freund_.”

“Hey, I was glad to help.” Tony peered over the back of the couch, giving Loki’s concealing arm what he hoped was a comforting squeeze. “Any better down there, babe?”

“I am perfectly well,” Loki answered.

“I just let the kids know, Kurt--it looks like we’re adding to the herd.”

“I have not a herd of children, as you say,” Loki grumped.

“I should think not!” Hela chimed in.

“I promise to take really good care of him while we’re away, and when we get back in a couple weeks you guys can help out too, then pretty soon _Pabbi_ will feel better and we’ll all be back to normal while your little brother grows.”

Loki bit back a groan, rolling toward the back of the couch, arms wrapped around his belly. Kurt rubbed his back gently.

“Tony, it might be…” he began.

Just then Logan reemerged with a shiny-clean, dry, and clothed Fen. “Ya know what I need today?” he asked the kids. “I need breakfast at a diner, with pancakes, and then I need to see some dinosaur bones. Ya ever have one of those days? Furthermore, as Headmaster of the Jean Grey School and a trained educator, I let your teachers know that your educations up to this point had been sorely lacking in prehistoric fossils of all sorts, which is pretty damn disgraceful. And you know who else is really, really old but hasn’t seen any dinosaurs, ever?”

Jöri lifted his head. “Uncle Tony?”

“Thanks, kiddo,” Tony laughed.

“Nope! Even though your Uncle Thor is the oldest person you know, he has never seen a dinosaur. What do you say we invite him? Wash your face, JoJo, everybody grab your coats. Kiss _Pabbi_ and Uncle Tony goodbye. Last one down to Thor’s is a rotten dinosaur egg!”

There was a mad scramble between the boys.

Hela moved silently to the edge of the couch, clearly not wanting to be mistaken for one of the actual children. She took Loki’s hand. “I would stay, _Pabbi_ ,”

“Take your sketchpad, my sweetling,” Loki came out his miserable huddle to say. “It will be excellent practice. Draw interesting things and send the drawings to my StarkPad, that I may see what you have seen.”

“But I misgive,” she said softly. “And though I know that you may not, I wish that you might stay here in Manhattan with us. Such misgivings haunt me, _Pabbi_. Guard yourself well, for my sake?”

“I will, beloved.” Loki gave her a slightly shaky smile. “Never fear. All will be well.”

Hela went to get her coat looking like she was on her way to the guillotine.

The new arrangements, Pep springing into action like the trouper she was and Bruce promising to keep an eye on the lab and workshop for Tony, made their getaway relatively easy.

After a nap and something to eat, Loki felt much better, well enough to finish his own packing. Now that goodbyes had been said and suitcases stowed, here they were in the back of the town car with Happy driving, on their way to JFK.

"You don’t think I’m being a helicopter baby-daddy, Lok, do you?” Tony asked.

Loki looked at him as if he’d grown a second head. “Pray explain…? A helicopter…?”

Tony made a gesture in midair with his hand. “You know. Hovering obnoxiously?”

“What, by the Nine, was that second term? I found it, if anything, more repellent.” Loki slumped back in his seat, eyeing Tony skeptically. “You are my betrothed, honored father of my child, not…” His upper lip actually curled with contempt. “A so-called ‘baby-daddy.’ One shudders.”

“Does one?” Tony teased. He took Loki’s hand, rubbing the anti-nausea pressure spot in his wrist. He hoped it helped. He actually didn’t know if Loki had pressure spots like a human. Although Tony Junior was still definitely not making Loki a happy camper, he was certainly better off than he’d been at the start of the day. He’d even managed to eat a small bowl of oatmeal and, so far, to hold on to it. He just looked so damn exhausted it made Tony’s heart hurt. He should have been home resting, comfortable and pampered, not heading out for a transatlantic flight followed by two weeks digging in the dirt, outdoors in rainy, windy conditions.

His Loki should also have been an energetic, sinuous being filled with whipcord strength, not fragile and tired.

“I am sorry that I disappoint you,” Loki said. And was that a touch of snark in there?

“I just feel so bad for you,” Tony said. “I want you to feel good again. And your Minister is an asshole, by the way.”

In his worry, he’d tried the contact number Loki had been given. After being transferred fourteen times, to a series of equally clueless people, he’d ended up with a woman named Anthea, who’d told him in a perfectly pleasant yet somehow, at the same time, completely uncaring and condescending way, that it was a matter of national security and Loki better just haul his sorry ass onto a plane already.

Not that she used those words. Hers were posh and proper.

Loki didn’t tell him, “I told you so,” he just looked increasingly stressed, and Tony figured the time was ripe to give up on that line of attack and just be supportive-guy instead.

Right now he did that by putting his arms around his fiancé and snuggling him up close.

“I wish that as well,” Loki sighed, leaning in to him, “But truthfully, I feel much better, belovéd. Only tell me what it is Hank said that upset you so?”

“Nothing. Totally not important. He just wishes you were going to be around for monitoring purposes. He wants us to make sure you don’t get dehydrated, that you get enough rest and that you get enough to eat. You’ll make a real effort with that, won’t you?”

A Loki at full, or even half strength would probably have told him, "The flimsiness of your falsehoods astounds me!" with the most wicked of wicked grins.

Today's exhausted Loki merely rested his head on Tony's shoulder. “I wish our child to be strong and well, just as you do. And, indeed, he seems to demand those things of me.”

Since Loki had never been allowed to enjoy a completely normal pregnancy, and was, literally, unique, they couldn’t even look at past experiences for what was or wasn’t right for him. Literally all Hank McCoy had been able to tell them on his emergency drop-in visit that morning was to make sure Loki got the stuff Tony had just nagged him about, and that he’d do a thorough workup upon their return.

Even after Tony’s failed call, he’d still been dead set against the trip. Very much so. And it was only after Loki had an impassioned discussion with him in what might have been rapid-fire Latin, or possibly Ancient Greek, that Hank must have noticed how white and shaky Loki was getting and sent him off to rest, dress, and pack, in that order.

The moment Loki stepped out of the infirmary, Hank let loose on Tony with both barrels, treating him to a scathing lecture about having allowed the pregnancy to happen in the first place, including some phrases Tony sincerely hoped never to hear from Dr. McCoy’s erudite mouth again. He ended up feeling worse than he’d ever felt in his life—he’d known Loki’s health was a little shaky, just not how bad things were, or could get. He’d never stopped to consider that this new life could threaten Loki’s, or how little time had passed, really, since the other kids had been born.

A triple birth, under the most extreme circumstances possible, followed by weeks of deprivation and torture. Loki was not only in no shape physically, but it was way too much for him to take mentally and emotionally as well.

And that part, at the very least, Tony should have known.

“You worry overmuch,” Loki told him, popping open a ginger ale from the small on-board fridge. “Straw, please?” When Tony passed him one, he said, “Ah, green!” in a tone of real delight.

If that didn’t sum up one of the many reasons he loved Loki, Tony didn’t know what did. That he was surprised every single time that someone would want to do even a small thing that gave him pleasure.

It had broken Tony’s heart to hear that Loki had never received a birthday present (because even when his own mom and dad had forgotten, Mrs. Cook would always at least make him cookies or cupcakes, and Jarvis always had something wrapped for him, and nearly always a fun outing to celebrate the day besides).

Loki called birthday presents Naming-Day Gifts—and explained away the lack of them by saying he’d named himself, so no celebration was necessary. He’d also apparently never received a Yule (or Jul, as Loki would most certainly correct him, before Tony said, “same difference.”) gift that wasn’t some sort of weapon, usually whatever weapon Loki was lagging behind Thor in mastering. Gods forbid it be taken into account how much younger and slighter Loki was than his brother. For Loki it was always going to be the Asgardian equivalent of socks and underwear, no matter how beautifully made and splendid. That every single one came with an implied criticism of failure just made the presents that much crappier.

“As he did well, ever, Thor received many playthings,” Loki informed him, “And was often quite generous with me. There were old things in the storage chambers, also, that once belonged to Hodr or Baldr. When I could not have Thor’s playthings, I enjoyed those. And soon enough, I became competent in reading and spent my days in the library. Then I began my studies in earnest and had no more need of baubles.”

“When I was very small,” Loki said after a pause. “I believed the runes were trees that sang their songs to me, until the queen discovered me there by happenchance one day and taught me to read properly.”

“But you could read already?”

Loki smiled slightly. “Yes, I suppose that I could. But not properly, not if I believed words were the singing of the rune trees.”

“And how old were you?”

“Two, I suppose. Or three. Young enough to still be in skirts. A winter’s child is given his first breeches on Midsummer’s Day of the year when he turns three, and a summer’s child at Jul. I remember, definitely that I was in skirts because the library could be drafty. At times I would need to return to the nursery when I became chilled.

"I remember I was quite surprised to see the queen there, so close to, and at night, because I had only ever seen her by daylight, and far away. The closest I’d ever been was when she arrived to take Thor to a feast. I suppose I knew jealousy then, because she seemed to love him greatly, and I wondered what that was like. Nurse was ever kind to me, but she was a servant, paid for my care. She did not love me. Only Thor loved me, and perhaps Hodr, though he was soon gone...”

“I love you,” Tony said, “And you fucking break my heart, you know that, right?”

Much as Tony knew Loki loved books (and Loki loved books, whether it was reading them by the hundreds on his StarkPad or as tattered paperbacks or rare antique volumes whose covers he caressed like a lover) there was still something so terribly lonely in the thought of that small, skinny boy all alone in the palace library, like kid Ebenezer Scrooge left behind at school when the other boys went home for Christmas, dragging the oversized books off the shelves by himself, sitting in a grownup-sized chair with his little legs dangling, while the other children were outside running and jumping and whacking each with toy swords.

Even lonelier than a small, scrappy boy sitting on the floor in what was supposed to have been his mom’s elaborate potting shed in the back yard of his parents’ grand mansion, from when Maria was briefly interested in roses, fiddling with wires and tin snips and tools. At least he’d had the human Jarvis to bring him cocoa and express an interest in his latest creations—but then, Tony supposed Frigga had dropped by now and then to express approval once Loki’s magic started to bloom. Maybe she’d even brought Loki an occasional cup of mead or ambrosia or gruel—whatever Æsir kids drank—to keep his strength up.

“One of the things I love in you,” Loki told him. "One of many, is that you do not see the wrong in me. I see very little wrong in you either, belovéd.”

Two lonely, quirky, unloved, genius princes from distant kingdoms. No wonder they were made for each other.

“Where have you gone to, Tony?” Loki said. “What grieves you?”

With a little infusion of ginger ale, he was looking remarkably better. Tony wouldn’t exactly say he had color in his cheeks, but the difference between Loki-healthy-alabaster and Loki-sick-gray was striking. That damn soda was like a miracle drug for him.

“Unh. Thinking about parents. And right now about how you’re looking pretty fucking great. I think you’re actually glowing slightly. If I don’t watch out you’re going to be sparkling like a _Twilight_ vampire.”

Loki sniffed. “Vampyr are low, ill-bred creatures of coarse desires. They do not, as you say, ‘sparkle.’ Such a conceit is ridiculous. They do, however, combust nicely in direct sunlight.” Loki took a long drink from his soda. “Kurt and Logan have fought them, as has an Oxford friend of mine in London. Perhaps we shall meet with him in our travels. He is a curator at the British Museum and an expert on ancient languages and civilizations. His translation skills are nearly equal to my own.”

“His name is Rupert Giles, and he’s a Watcher, right?” Tony laughed, with a very bad imitation of Loki’s voice. “Next thing you’ll be telling me there’s a Hellmouth in Sunnydale.”

“I did not know you were familiar with Rupert.” Loki wore his faux-perplexed look beautifully. “Did you meet in California?”

“Oh, good one, Lok! I swear to all you godly guys, I never know when you’re putting me on.”

“You ought to ask Barton and Romanova about Budapest,” Loki answered thoughtfully, but he never did explain that non sequitur, instead he drifted off as another of those pleased, mellow looks began stealing over his face. Tony knew he was either watching the kids or sending with them.

“They are playing ‘Hide Me-Seek You’ with Logan in the tower. Logan is Seeker. Both sides, I fear, are cheating outrageously. Fen is cleverly shifting his scent as he goes. Even Jöri has not thought of such a stratagem.” He laughed. “Ah, there, Fen has told him. Jöri has made himself smell like a chair and Logan is quite confused at the loss of his scent-trail. Ah, and poor Hela is quite indignant she cannot join with the same skill in this particular bit of mischief.”

“I’m surprised they got her to join in at all. It doesn’t really seem like her thing.”

“We both do well to remember she is a child still, despite her veneer of sophistication. There, now, Kurt has come to her aid and teleported her to quite another part of the building.”

Tony laughed. “Yup, fun times for Logan, chasing after those three for a couple weeks. Mischief Junior in triplicate.”

“Fun times indeed,” Loki agreed. “Speaking of mischief, may I remind you of the thing hidden on your StarkPad, for your amusement later, should I be sleeping?” He slid down in his seat a little, resting his head on Tony’s shoulder.

“You sleepy now?”

Loki yawned. “Ridiculously so. It is a thing I remember now from Narfi and Vali, that all I wanted, always, was to eat and sleep. Mother, I remember, became rather impatient with me. I did not progress in my studies at all.”

 _Nice priorities, there, Allmother_ , Tony thought, but he said nothing to Loki. This was the first time he could remember that his fiancé had not only broached the subject of his first two sons, but not broken down after talking about them.

“Boss, Mr. Boss,” Happy called back to them, “I just got word the StarkJet is cleared, fueled and ready. As soon as you arrive they’ll put you in line for a runway.”

“Thanks, Hap,” Tony answered. “And by the way, thanks for taking the trouble to drive us today. I know you have bigger fish to fry.”

“Nng!” Loki protested, sick gray again. He took a desperate pull from the ginger ale, sinking back into the deep leather upholstery with a sigh.

Tony rubbed his knee gently, reminding himself not to talk about fried foods—which Loki despised at any time--when his sweetie had morning sickness. “Okay?”

“Mmn.” Loki murmured.

“Still thinking a commercial flight would have been just fine?”

“Do not taunt me, I beg of you.” Loki’s icy-cold hand curled around Tony’s. “At any rate, I flew a Mossie in the war. Two seats, and made of wood. I am not timid of aircraft, as you suggested previously.”

“Really? A Mossie?” Happy broke in, excited. “Mr. Boss, I would kill to go for just one ride!”

“Perhaps we might arrange it someday. There must still be some worthy of flight, lovingly maintained through the years. I will have to become rated again, of course, yet one never truly forgets, does one?”

“Mossie?” Tony wondered aloud.

“A de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito,” Happy said. “They’re beautiful little things.”

“Beautiful,” Loki echoed, staring out the side window, completely lost in thought.

Tony wondered what he was remembering. He didn’t say much of anything after that, except to thank Happy sweetly for the ride and shake his hand. Loki’s handshakes, Tony noted, might still need a little work—the way he presented his hand tended to resemble a medieval pope presenting his ring to be kissed, but at least he didn’t grab your forearm like Thor and attempt to meld your radius and ulna.

To Tony’s very great surprise, Happy gave Loki a big hug in return (which Loki, for a wonder, actually accepted affectionately), and told him to take care and feel better.

Smiling, Loki answered, “I shall bring you a souvenir,” and they both laughed.

At which point, Happy carried Loki’s luggage up into the jet, leaving Tony to tend to his own. Loki laughed again, in a fairly sinister way, and hefted Tony’s largest bag. “I am subverting your minions, beloved.”

“Apparently. Should you really be carrying that?”

The bag up near one shoulder, Loki shrugged. “Its weight is as nothing. Can you manage the small one?”

“Now we cast aspersions on my manhood? Are you calling me weak? And since when do I say things like ‘cast aspersions?’ See what kind of scary influence you are on me?”

“I am wonderful, is that not what you tell me?” Loki strolled up the stairs backward, still laughing, the big bag balanced on his shoulder. The happiness in his face made Tony wonder why they hadn’t done this before, gone away somewhere. Of course they adored the kids, they both did, but it hit him that they’d had literally no time of just the two of them together, not even a date or a private dinner.

“Hey!” Happy said from the top of the stairs. “You’re not supposed to be carrying that, remember, Mr. Boss. That’s heavy!”

“I surrender it to your capable hands, Happy,” said Loki, turning, calling over his shoulder to Tony, “Hurry, _skjaldbaka_.”

Happy laughed.

“See? Subverting!” Tony said--then, to Happy, “How do you even know what he said?”

“I’ve dated a girl from Iceland for five years, Boss. It’s practically the same language Mr. Boss speaks. He called you a tortoise, by the way.”

Loki practically fell down the stairs laughing, and might have if Tony hadn’t blocked his way. As a reward he was gifted with a long, slow kiss, while Happy beamed at them. After, Loki touched Tony’s lips with his thumb, as if sealing the kiss upon them.

“ _Minn hugrakkur, myndarlegur, skjaldbaka_.”

“My brave, handsome tortoise,” Happy translated, chuckling, and clapped Tony’s shoulder. “Have a really great trip, Boss, Mr. Boss. Be good to each other.”

“We will, my friend,” Loki answered softly. “Fare well.”

“Take care, Hap. Drive safe.”

The two of them ducked under the doorway (or, Loki ducked, Toni sauntered) just as the steward was gathering together their luggage.

Tony handed over his small bag. “Our StarkPads are in there,” he instructed, “So I think we’ll want those and the headphones. Anything else, Lok?”

“I have a novel packed, in Mr. Stark’s bag, and reading spectacles.” Loki reached out his hand, and he must have caught the stray thought about medieval popes, because there was nothing imperious about it at all, just normal handshaking position. “I am Loki Friggason, fiancé of Mr. Stark. I thank you for your service upon this journey.”

“I know who you are,” said the steward in a quiet voice.

Loki’s eyes went wide, his face even whiter than usual. “Yes, I see.” He searched a minute until he found where Tony’s carry-on had wound up.

“As always, of course, I am quite able to serve myself.” He pulled out his small StarkPad and headphones, a glasses case and a thick paperback.

“Tony,” he asked, “Where is the right place to hang my coat?”

“It’s the steward’s job to hang it. Which he will do now. Because he values his job.”

“Tony, his livelihood ought not to be threatened because he will not serve me. I am reminded that, as commended by Director Phillip Coulson, I am not to be served by any sentient being. I am to serve myself, and those around me, and learn the lesson of humbleness. At the S.H.I.E.L.D. fortress they required me to scrub things. On my knees. So that I would learn what it was to be forced to kneel before others.”

Loki began to shake, his elegant coat slipping from his arms to the cabin floor.

Red flashed in Tony’s vision. “You. Steward dude. You’re out. Two weeks’ severance, no recommendation, hope it was worth it.”

“You can’t take off without a flight attendant.” The guy actually fucking sneered.

“How ‘bout if you let me deal with that, ‘kay? Grab your things. Off. Too bad about that expenses-free week in London with pay you won’t fucking be enjoying.” He crossed to the intercom. “Hi, whoever’s flying me today. I just booted the steward for being an insubordinate  
asshole. If he’s right about needing a replacement to get into the air, let’s make that happen yesterday. If not, let’s close the door and get this show on the road.”

He scarcely heard Loki give a sudden, pained, “Ah!” behind him, but when he did turn Loki was standing with one hand clutching the opposite bicep, utter fury fighting with utter confusion on his face.

Steward McCrankypants had vanished.

“I did not strike him in return. Did you see, Tony? I did not strike him.” He took the hand away from his arm. “I have blood on me. Only a little, though.”

“Good job, babe.” Tony walked him backward to one of the seats, pushing him down. “Okay, off with your sweater. Jumper. Whatever.” He started pulling the woolly garment over Loki’s head, he and his fiancé working completely at cross purposes, getting Loki tangled up in the thick wool worse then ever.

“Perhaps I should…?” Loki suggested at last, sounding slightly less shaky. When he got the sweater off, finally, there was an angry tear in his white skin, running at a forty-five degree angle to the sleeve of his black silk t-shirt. “See, the merest scrape. I was only astounded that he should strike me in such a manner.”

“Yeah, he probably got you with that ugly-ass ring he was wearing.”

“Did he injure my jumper?” Loki checked the sleeve carefully. “No, I believe it is unharmed.”

“Well, as long as your sweater’s okay, I guess we can rest easy. You and the clothes, Lok.”

“The mum of Pepper most kindly knitted this jumper for me, not requiring the least payment, and it matches my eyes.” Loki hugged the garment close to his chest. “Tony, I feel afraid and resentful and angry and hurt.”

“That’s a lot of feelings.” Tony picked up his hand, trying to rub some warmth back into it. The skin was, literally, icy, a thin, frosty rime cracking under his touch. “You almost changed, didn’t you, babe?”

“I feel entirely exhausted, and desperately also.” Loki turned his face toward the glass. “There is a small vehicle, like a shrunken, misshapen example of that machine you Midgardians call a "Jeep" stopped near us on the tarmac. From that a young man with yellow hair approaches with haste.” He leaned back in his seat, shutting his eyes.

“Is it true," he asked after a pause, "That when one uses the room of requirement in midair, there is a chance of frozen chunks of one’s óhroða tumbling down upon someone’s head? I should feel remorseful if that happened. Or perhaps laugh. It would depend on the moment.”

“Is óhroða what I think it is?”

“Ordure.” Loki smiled slightly. “What you and the children call ‘poop.’”

“I apologize for our Midgardian lack of fanciness.”

Loki waved that psuedo-apology away with " _Truly, what more can one expect_?" kind of gesture, then reached up to twist his hair back into a short, fluffy ponytail, hissing slightly as the movement pulled on his injured arm. “I know not why such an inconsequential scratch should pain me, such a thing of no import, that would not trouble a child.”

Tony kissed the skin just over the slight wound. The edges—weirdly--had started  to redden, he noticed. “There, a kiss to make it better, and let’s clean it up.”

He got a skeptical look, including a raised brow, in regards to the supposed healing power of kisses, but other than that Loki didn't make a peep.  He still looked shocked, maybe worried, most of all sad, in that distant, not quite in this world way he'd slip into sometimes.

Tony fetched the First Aid kit and began the job of swabbing and bandaging. “Better safe than sorry. See? All better.” He stroked Loki’s icy cheek with his thumb. “It’s all right now, babe. It’s all right. You know that, don’t you?  This was just one guy being a jerk.  It doesn't mean anything.”

“I never meant to do harm. I never did, in this instance.” Loki’s normally silky voice broke. “He came here solely to punish me, Tony. Why?”

A young man--the same one they'd seen on the tarmac--burst into the cabin and immediately began shutting and locking the door. “Mr. Stark,” he exclaimed. “My most abject apologies…”

“I like this one better already,” Loki murmured. “He used ‘abject’ correctly in a sentence.”

Tony glared. “And you are?”

“Niles Ramsay, sir. I’ve flown with you before? Your steward.”

Tony softened the glare. He did remember this kid. He was young, but pleasant and efficient--in other words, pretty damn great at his job. This time his cheeks had reddened, his hair ruffled, and his uniform somewhat less than pristine, nothing like his usual polished look.

Loki’s eyes popped open. “Sit down a moment, Niles.” He sounded as if he was talking to one of the children. Not condescending, but gentle, and underneath that, more than a little alarmed. “We understand that you would be shaken.”

Tony glanced at his fiancé. _We do?_

_Mr. Ramsay was, from the beginning, meant to be our steward. Brigands accosted on the way to the airport. I know not from whence the false steward came, or how he managed to evade your minions. Forgive me, Tony, had I been more myself, I most certainly would have detected him as an imposter._

“Seriously, Ramsay, take a minute.  Take two--or however long you need.” Tony touched his ear-bee—let the kid think that was where he was getting his intel. said. “I guess you had a hard time of it getting here, huh?” 

“Maybe after we take off, sir. The tower’s calling and I need to make sure everything’s secure.”

Ramsay quickly stowed Loki’s coat and Tony’s leather jacket, locked down their luggage, tucked their personal things into their seat pockets,  brought them each a bottle of water, followed by a little silver tray with hard candies.

“If you suck on them when you’re taking off,” Tony explained, “It equalizes the pressure in your ears. They don’t pop so much, or hurt.”

“The yellow ones are ginger,” Niles said to Loki, with a slight smile. “I understand that’s your favorite?”

Loki took two of the cellophane-wrapped sweets, still looking skeptical. To Tony's relief, he took off the wrapping before popping one in his mouth--he hadn't been sure his fiance knew about that little step, but at the same time hadn't wanted to insult him.

From the moment they started backing to head for the runway Loki’s hold on Tony’s hand turned to the death-grip of the gods, and Tony had to transfer it to the armrest to avoid a fistful of busted metatarsals. He rubbed Loki’s knuckles instead. “It’s okay, babe. Don’t worry. I only hire the best pilots.”

“Not worried,” Loki gritted. “Bloody cabin is flipping backwards. Rapidly. It’s horrid.”

While Loki’s eyes were closed, Tony sneaked a barf bag out of the seat pocket and shook it open, hoping that particular convenience wouldn’t need to be used. That turned out to be a completely vain hope—such a vain hope that if Loki did much more flying while pregnant, Stark Industries would have to start buying their travel sickness bags from the big box store.

By the time they finally hit cruising altitude, Loki was so far out of it, Tony and the steward both had to band together to walk his groggy, swaying self to the small bedroom at the back of the cabin, where Loki collapsed face down on the bed and didn’t move. Luckily, for Loki, he'd taken the simply dressed route that morning, meaning Tony only had to deal with his boots and belt, cover him up and leave him alone as he slept and slept and slept.

Tony left the bedroom door ajar and setting up shop in the lounging area, shoes kicked off and his legs up on the loveseat, the perfect position to take an occasional peek into the next room, the better to make sure everything remained okay.

At dinner hour (New York time), Niles brought him a steak with a baked potato on the side along with balsamic-dressed _haricots verts_ (which always made Tony wonder why green beens got a fancy French name, other veggies not so much). The meal tasted amazing, especially considering it had been microwaved, and to accompany his food, Ramsay poured him a glass of a really decent Merlot.

Before and after, Tony caught up on work, made a few notes to himself about ideas he wanted to try out, made a couple more notes about how Jӧri’s undersea robot friends could be simplified slightly for mass production, along with improved waterproofing of the submersibles—full credit to the young inventor, of course. He'd lost himself pleasantly contemplating thoughts of his soon-to-be-son’s first marketed invention, when Loki screamed holy hell from the other room.

Of course, this being Loki, his holy hell could never be in plain English, the better to comfort and reassure. It couldn’t even be the King James version Loki normally spoke, that Tony was actually starting to get a strange kind of feel for (though even Loki’s mini-me, Hela, had mocked him mercilessly the other day when Tony had said ‘divers’ when he meant ‘lots of different’).

No, Loki's meltdown had to be in full-on SpaceViking.

Where was Happy “Oh, by the way, it’s just like Icelandic” Hogan when Tony needed him?

“ _Ó, nei_ ,” Loki screamed. _“Ekki snerta það, ekki snerta það, er það á hjarta mínu! Þú drepur mig ef þú gerir. Á miskunn þinni_ , Captain Rogers!”

Um… Captain Rogers? That part Tony got.

He rushed into the bedroom, where Loki--wound up in the bedclothes like a clumsily-wrapped mummy, overheated to an extent that almost scared Tony, and  probably totally dehydrated as hell--continued to be dead-to-the-world asleep.. He set about detangling duties, tossing the whole mess of sweat-soaked bedding to the floor.

He didn’t even have to ask for a bottle of water, Ramsay already stood beside him, water in hand.

Loki woke up just long enough enough to drink the whole thing, pull off his sweat-soaked t-shirt and settle right back into sleep.

“We still have two more hours before we begin our descent, sir,” the steward murmured. “If you want to nap, I’ll be sure to wake you and Mr. Friggason in plenty of time to freshen up.”

“It’s a nice word, isn’t it—‘nap,’” Tony said, heart still beating fast in the aftermath of Loki's freak-out. “It sounds so damn _comfortable_. Yeah, I guess I’ll take you up on that. Just slide a couple more waters our way, then you get some rest too.”

“Thank you, sir.” Ramsay was away and back with the waters instantly and invisibly, dimmed the lights to almost nothing, then vanished again, shutting the door gently behind him. Tony grabbed an extra couple blankets from a locker, got rid of his jeans and peeled off his long-sleeved tee, crawling into bed beside his fiancé.

Loki looked peaceful now, at least, the blanket draped loosely over his waist, his curly hair, freed from its ponytail, spilling out across the pillow.

 _It's good to see him relaxed_ , Tony thought, _Taking a break from that tension he carts around everywhere._

"God, Lok, you're beautiful to me," he murmured.  Even way too thin, as Loki was currently he shone--that smooth white skin, those lovely fine bones and his exquisitely defined muscles. He looked as if he ought to have wings, like some divinely-crafted angel or, perhaps, a devil of astounding beauty, temptation waiting to happen.

Loki’s lips parted. “ _Ég get ekki yfirgefa hann einn. Ég get það ekki. Ekki spyrja hana ekki um mig_ ,” he breathed. A single tear ran down his cheek.

Tony wiped it away with his thumb, bending to kiss Loki’s shoulder. “Whatever it is, babe, don’t let it make you sad. You’re okay. I’m here with you.”

“I do not want to leave him!” Loki insisted in his sleep. “I shall defy augury! In this instance, Mother, I will do as I will, _og fjandinn Alföðr fyrir grimmd hans_!”

And then he just fell to sobbing, a quiet, miserable, heartbreaking sound.

“My baby, my baby,” he mourned, a litany that quickly went from heartbreaking to unbearable.

This wasn’t even Loki’s normal range of horrible dreams, overflowing with Thanos and the Chitauri, mind-control, Latveria and his stints in solitary confinement. Oh, and let’s not forget his unreasoning fear of J.A.R.V.I.S. Loki, who otherwise feared basically nothing on earth, and not much out there in the galaxy except, maybe, his dad, had a terror of of J.A.R.V.I.S. at least equal to--or exceeding--the way other people feared clowns, and maybe for the same non-reasons.

After a certain point, Tony just didn’t know how to deal.

“C’mon, babe, that’s enough,” Tony said wearily, “It’s not long until we land. Wake up. This isn’t doing you any good. Wake up.”

At that, Loki woke. His eyes flew open looking so young, and so completely innocent, it practically broke Tony’s heart all over again, like looking at someone he’d never in his life met.

Loki sat up slowly, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I found that sleep remarkably unrefreshing,” he said.

“How’s your stomach? Still yucky?”

Loki made a face (mostly, Tony suspected, at his use of of the word "yucky). “Tolerable. I need to wash.”

When Tony showed him the door, Loki paused just a moment, his hand cupping Tony’s cheek. “It shames me to be so horrible.  I do not mean to be.”

“You’re not horrible.”

“I see clearly that you have had no sleep. Where we are staying, will you enjoy a separate chamber, so that you may rest properly?”

You think I'd enjoy a separate room under any circumstances? It would have the distinct disadvantage of not having you in it.”

“You are very sweet to me, when you think of it.” Which was a good example of a Loki compliment and also, Tony had to admit, pretty much true.

“You wash up. I’ll find you some clean clothes, okay?” Tony said.

The warmth in Loki’s smile was all the reward he needed.

For their two days they'd spend in London, before heading off to Wales, Tony had arranged for a suite at The Savoy and a car and driver. He’d expec ted a certain amount of enthusiasm from Loki, who did tend to like the better things in life.

Instead he got a lukewarmish, “Myrddin and I always took the Tube,” with Loki emerging suddenly from an apparent state of zombification as they headed toward customs. “I like the Tube.”

“Were you pregnant, with out-of-control morning sickness?” Tony asked, his extreme tiredness bringing out a miffed-ish quality in his voice.

“No, that was later, in Cardiff,” Loki answered absently. “Whatever arrangements you have made, however, will of course be perfection. Oh, here is where we part for the moment.” He whisked himself off to the section of customs for home-coming Brits, where to Tony’s watching eyes the officials appeared to treat him like returning royalty—there were acouple seals on Loki’s newly-reissued passport that hadn’t looked exactly standard to him, but Loki had just grinned when Tony asked about them.

By the time Tony made it through to the other side of his queue, on the heels of a quartet of elderly and overstimulated _Downton Abbey_ fans and what appeared to be the family from _19 and Counting_ , Loki had not only reached the other side of the barrier, he was seated on a bench, having what was probably tea being poured from a Thermos for him by a sweet-faced senior citizen.

“Tony!” Loki leaped to his feet, grinning hugely. “Beloved, please to meet my dear friend, Martha Sissons!”

“Hudson, dear.” She capped the Thermos neatly and gave Loki a sweet smile. “It’s MarthaHudson now.”

She rose, smoothing down her tweedy lavender skirt. “Mrs. Martha Hudson, and I am very pleased to meet you.  It's Mr. Stark, isn't it?” Mrs. Hudson stretched out a small, fine-boned hand. Something in her mannerisms that reminded Tony of a pert little bird, of a little cooing purple dove. “I hope you're treating my darling Lolo well?” she asked.

 _Lolo_? Tony wanted to mouth at his fiancé, just barely managing to restrain himself.  Mrs. Hudson had something of an observant look to her.

“Martha was an assassin,” Loki informed him cheerfully.

“Dancer, dear,” Mrs. Hudson said, in placid tones.

“Indeed, you tried to assassinate me,” Loki protested.

“Just a dancer, dear boy.” She smiled at Tony brightly. “My, aren’t you a handsome one! Not as beautiful as my Lolo, of course, but I do like a little beard on a man. So dashing! Like a pirate!”

Loki’s eyes sparkled with unholy glee. He linked his right arm with Mrs. Hudson’s and draped his left arm around Tony’s shoulders. “I am nearly uncontrollably excited to be home!” he exclaimed.

 _Great_ , Tony thought, nor meaning to be sour, but sour anyway.  _Home? Uncontrollably excited?_

“We are travelling just now to the house of Mrs. Hudson, Tony,” Loki told him.

 _Whoa, babe,_ Tony sent _. Whoa whoa whoa whoa. We’ve been flying for hours, and I didn’t sleep through it, like some people. I feel gross. I probably smell bad._

 _You do not_ , Loki sent in return, reassuringly. _You smell delightful, as nearly always._

 _Whether or not that’s true. I want to shower, shave, put on clean clothes, eat, and sleep, in that_ order. _You notice the complete lack of “Have tea with Mrs. Hudson” on that list?_

 _You may do as you will,_ Loki sent back, with on barely suppressed sense of irritation. _Go to the hotel. Naturally, I shall miss you, but I would not delay  your slumbers._

The flavor of Loki's sending told him the total opposite, that his fiance felt nearly desperate for his company.

_Loki? WTF?_

_I must meet my son ere I lose courage,_ Loki blurted out. _He is there, Tony, he is there! I have brought myself to this_ _point, beloved, but should I delay…_ Loki’s big green eyes glistened, begging him. _I am so_ _very frightened._ _I didn’t know we were here for that,_ Tony answered _. I thought we were here because of your debt_ _to the Minister, and your Scooby-Doo Merlin Mystery in Wales._

 _The Minister has sent Martha to me here, though I know not why!_ Loki cried out in his head, making Tony’s ears ring. _I saw my son, just now, reflected within her mind. I did not deceive you_ _—why must you always believe that I have?_

He sank down suddenly on another bench. _Why,_ _Tony?_

And, dammit if he wasn’t breaking out the god-level puppy eyes for the occasion!

_Because, yeah, I really, really want, at this very exact moment in time, to meet your bastard kid by another dude. And like father, like son, huh? You left him alone here, just like Laufey left you?_

Tony had thought those words, he had, and he took full blame for the sheer shitty nastiness of the thought, but even miffed, exhausted, hungry as he was, he never would have, in any realm, be it the ninth or nine millionth, have deliberately sent them to his beloved Loki. It sounded so mean, so vicious even—and tired was no excuse for having words like that pop up in his head.

Worst of all, he also felt the thought—completely unintentionally--fly out of his head and straight into Loki’s, Tony wished like to hell he could reach up into the air and pull every syllable back to himself.

Of course it was too late, though, and he couldn’t.

He tried like hell, though.

_Christ, I’m so, so sorry, Lok. I’m exhausted and I didn’t edit and I’m really, really so damn sorry._

Only he felt Loki’s mind rip right down the middle, thought and emotion flying out like a murder of crows, like the four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie in the nursery rhyme, crazy with the heat and the crowding.

If Loki hadn’t already been sitting, he certainly would have collapsed.

A need bubbled up in Tony just to run from it all, the way he always wanted to every time he screwed something up—grin, joke, exit stage left.

 _You’re not worthy of cleaning my poor boy’s boots._  Mrs. Hudson dropped this crisp condemnation directly into Tony's mind, making him feel even worse.

 _You’re no dif erent to what Howard was, are you, Anthony?_   Because apparently Mrs. Martha Hudson, _née_ Sissons, retired dancer and assassin, had known his Old Man also? Small fucking planet.

Tony had a distinct feeling of his own world coming unzipped and sliding sideways too, as he caught a last, coherent thought from Loki: _We would have been wed, Myrddin and I, if only we could, but how was it to be accomplished in that age? I plighted him, he plighted me, what more were we allowed to do, when even to be rumored might mean prison and shame in this place?_

Then, a shattered fragment … _like Narfi and Vali and my poor belovéd Sleipnir in Asgard._

Tony just barely stopped himself from running for real.

But Loki, who was all about the ins and outs, the sudden escapes, the hidden places, chose that moment to teleport away in a flash of swirling green light.

“He was always such a sensitive boy,” Mrs. Hudson tutted. “Now what do you plan to do?”


	3. Worries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki regrets leaving Tony at the airport, but meets up with another old friend at Paddington Station. Meanwhile, Tony worries about Loki and is even more worried after a conversation with his brother-in-law to be. Loki is having a difficult time with his pregnancy, but when he and Tony reunite, things start getting back on the right track again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trains to Wales depart from Paddington Station, which may have been what Loki was  
> subconsciouly thinking when he teleported there. The time by train from London to  
> Cardiff, Wales is only about two hours.  
> Frændi=uncle  
> frændi kæri=dear uncle  
> Ó, til helvítis með þig!=Oh, to hell with you!  
> die Kinder=the children  
> mein armer Freund=my poor friend  
> hvað í fjandanum=what the hell?

* * *

In retrospect, Loki’s leap through space—a completely unintentional moment of sudden fury and impulse—had been beyond foolish, and he regretted the action immediately. He might have been with Tony, riding toward their hotel in a comfortable car, with money, his mobile, his coat and his possessions, having said a fond—and temporary—goodbye to his old friend Martha.

Instead he found himself penniless and alone (barring hundreds, if not thousands, of absolute strangers) in Paddington Station, having fallen literally out of nowhere at the base of a large square clock, striking his head quite hard on one of the clock’s sturdy legs as he arrived.

It had nearly been, as he’d thought, staggering back with both hands clutching his forehead, ears ringing like temple bells, what Tony might term a “Three Stooges Moment.” In truth, Loki had felt nearly as inept as one of those ungainly mortals.

The humour of "The Stooges," as Tony termed them, was completely lost on him, though they made Tony, and even Thor, laugh heartily. To Loki they seemed brutish and cruel. They made him uneasy.

As he felt uneasy now, fearful that he had been noticed. He had not been on his own, out in the open, since the day of his children’s birth. Apprehension made his skin crawl. His stomach knotted, and his heart beat over-fast.

Loki glanced around quickly, blinking to clear his vision.  It seemed to him that no one had observed his unorthodox arrival, or if they had, made no real note of it. Also, despite the huge expenditure of magical energy, he had not bled, thereby drawing even further attention to himself.

He felt like an idiot for abandoning dear Martha—the latest of his son’s appointed guardians—at Heathrow Airport, and even more so for having left Tony so hastily and unforgivingly. It had been sweet indeed to find Martha aged, but otherwise utterly as he remembered, brightly observant, warm and comforting, kindness over a core of iron, and to know she cared, truly cared for his son, as perhaps few did.

And Tony… Tony, to him, was like breathing. How could he have left him without a word, however angry he’d become? Over a random thought, no less!

Loki knew well how little Midgardians could control the contents of their heads, how words swam through the elegant simplicity of their minds like tropical fish through warm waters. He’d known how exhausted and cross Tony had become after their long and difficult day, that he had nearly drowned in remorse after the words Hank McCoy spoke to him. He’d been angered by the incident of the false steward and worn upon by worry for Loki himself, and for their growing youngling. It was in Tony’s nature, in his weakest times, to turn to cutting words, even when what he felt in his heart was something else entirely.

The truth was, Loki knew, his son was unlikely in the extreme to vanish suddenly from the surface of Midgard, only his own fear made him wish to hurry into their reunion. If he had calmed himself, and waited, Tony would have surely accompanied him, he need not face the terror alone.

His son would despise him. Was sure to, just as Tony said, and all the purity of his past intentions meant nothing. He had abandoned his youngling, that much was unassailably true, left him without knowledge of parentage or heritage. He ought to have been able to protect him from Odin. What sort of parent could not protect his own child?

If only he had been stronger, cleverer, more magical, better able to form bonds with those who could give him aid. If only he had not been fearful.

If only he had not been _ergi_.

Loki’s head spun and spun, throbbing sickly, and despite that, and the misery in his stomach, his youngling demanded feeding. The least attempt to send to Tony only increased the whirling. He could not even ring his belovéd, because he had left his mobile behind at the airport in his carry-on bag.

Loki sank down at the base of the clock, rested his folded arms upon his drawn-up knees and laid his head upon them, wishing with his whole being that he had never left Manhattan, or the penthouse, or his much-loved children.

Here, all he could do was ruin things again, as he ever ruined everything. London was not his home. He did not belong here, or anywhere. Why, by all the gods, had he been so rash?

“Indulging in a little self-pity?” asked a familiar voice over his head. As always, the tone was dry, slightly cutting, but for all that, not unfriendly. Loki and its owner had always been, in their odd and separate ways, companionable enough--perhaps because they both understood the tragic ending was as much a part of a legend as its golden days of glory.

Loki raised his head. His old not-quite-friend looked at him quizzically, head tilted to one side, dark and fashionably-styled hair tumbled around her shoulders, her black suit and white blouse both perfectly severe and perfectly feminine at once. Her height, which had always been less than considerable (though she had been counted tall in her day, just as Myrddin had been), increased nearly half a foot by a pair of Christian Louboutin heels. In other words, she had not changed in the least, but remained as expert in arts and disguises as she had always been.

She conjured a chair—Danish Modern, in an appealing amber-colored wood—and sat, legs impeccably crossed.

“Not self-pity,” Loki answered. “Perhaps self-disgust. I panicked a bit in a moment of weakness. How are you, Morgana?”

“Very well, old friend,” she said, with acid good humour. “Better than you, it seems. Have some soup.”

Loki took the vacuum flask she handed him, which was of the old style, made of steel and quite heavy. His hands trembled as he removed cup and lid, and poured a little, sniffing suspiciously.

“Go on,” she encouraged. “It’s not enchanted, and I remembered that you’re allergic to nearly everything on earth. There’s nothing there that will hurt you, I give my solemn word. It’s Chinese. Egg drop soup. It’s quite soothing and I believe you’ll like it. As I recall, when you’re up the duff, there’s no speaking with you until you’ve been fed.”

“It is terribly distracting,” Loki admitted. He felt so light-headed at the moment he could scarcely follow her words, and so he sipped cautiously. The soup was at a perfect temperature, mild and very good, wonderfully soothing to his unhappy stomach. “I may perhaps eat nothing else for my entire pregnancy. Most sincere thanks, Morgana. Or whatever name it is you go by these days.”

“Anthea,” she answered, smiling as if with a private joke. "At times."

“The Minister’s…” Loki began to say “minion,” but knew that could not be correct. She was too strong in and of herself to be the minion of god or man. “Helpmeet,” he concluded. “Or should that be Sword of Retribution?”

She laughed brightly. “A bit of both, I suppose. I usually describe my position as ‘Facilitator,’ though I suppose you, who are so clever with language, would call that a meaningless word.” She accepted the flask Loki passed back to her, shaking it slightly. “You’ve eaten almost nothing. What have these idiot mortals done to you, Loki?”

“Nothing.” He leaned his head back against the pillar. He felt brutally tired, and not very desirous of talking more. “It was my brother, in the main.”

“The handsome one or the cruel one?”

“The cruel one, primarily, and his minions. And besides, I have morning sickness.”

“So badly? Use your magic, darling. I don’t like to see you this way.”

“I save the magic left to me. Save it up for larger things. Save my energy.” The high, curved roof rippled above him, its steel beams writhing like snakes, but his stomach was full and his youngling content for the moment. Dimly Loki felt his old acquaintance take his hand and press it to her cheek, her skin soft as petals.

“Anthea,” Loki told her, “Is a Latinate name, but from the Greek. It means ‘blossom’ or ‘flower.’”

“Silly boy,” Morgana—or Anthea—chided gently. “No meetings for you today. Let’s take you to where you’re staying, shall we, and let you have a rest before we attempt anything?”

“With Tony,” Loki insisted, “I am staying with Tony.”

“Very well, then.” She laughed outright. “My Loki’s in love! For a trickster and mischief-maker, you always were the most sentimental thing. And where will I find your Tony, my sweet silvertongue?”

Loki considered. It seemed he really ought to know. As he was thinking, his eyes drifted shut and he felt terribly distant from his body.

“The Savoy it is, then,” Anthea said and laughed again. “My poor worn-out child. May all the old gods help us in our endeavors!”

When Loki opened his eyes again, he found himself in the back of a somberly elegant car, stopped outside the impressive front of The Savoy Hotel.

“Oh, this is where we are staying,” Loki exclaimed. “Now I remember!”

Anthea smiled and patted his cheek. “Of course it is, darling.”

* * *

Tony adjusted his to-do list once he got to The Savoy. Before he hopped in the shower he ordered room service and a bottle of scotch. That being accomplished, he stood under the water for half an hour, first yelling at himself internally , then crying a little (a lot) very externally, then standing in the downpour of hot, hot water utterly frozen with fear.

He felt dizzy from the heat when he stepped out again, but immediately pulled on fresh boxers and the plushy white Savoy robe and went to call his fiancé.

Loki had the StarkPhone International, the same phone Tony had, so there shouldn’t have been a problem getting through, except there not only wasn’t an answer, the ringing came from over by the wardrobe, where the bellboy had left Loki’s carry-on. Which meant not only couldn’t he talk to his straying love, he had no way even track him by GPS.

Dammit, he was going to start sewing tracer-tags in Loki’s underwear for just such occasions. Which, if push came to shove, Tony would have fully admitted he was not above doing.

Furthermore, the polite-sounding electronic voice that eventually picked up on Loki’s phone wasn’t even J.A.R.V.I.S. How did that happen? Actually he had an answer to that one. It wasn’t J.A.R.V.I.S. because crazy-smart Loki didn’t _want_ it to be J.A.R.V.I.S., and had reprogrammed the A.I. right out of his phone.

When had he done that? Furthermore, when had he learned to do that? Both those questions could probably be answered with, “Whenever he wanted to,” and “whenever he had a few spare minutes.”

It didn’t do to forget how brilliant Loki could be. If he wanted something done, he would learn it and do it, and if that wasn’t possible he’d find exactly the right person in exactly the right place (or with exactly the right skills) to make it happen. Witness Clint and Dr. Selvig.

Not that he meant to go there. He found himself growing angry again, in a low-level, tooth-grinding way, but he wasn’t sure whether it was Loki or himself he was mad at.

Tony was slumped at the table pouring scotch into his third cup of room service coffee when the suite’s landline rang. He answered, sounding embarrassingly needy and teary. “Loki? Loki, please, babe, listen…”

From the receiver came a persistent rustling, then the sound of the phone being dropped, followed by Hela’s voice saying, “No, _Frændi_ Thor, you don’t have to push a button. Only pick up the phone and speak. No, _frændi kæri_ , that’s quite the wrong way round. Yes, there you are.”

“Friend Tony.” It was fairly amazing how Thor’s voice could sound large and booming, yet hesitant at the same time. “Hela says you have lost my brother.”

 _Thanks, Hela_ , Tony thought, but he bit back the words.

He could hear the thunder god swallow heavily. “She knows not the exact hour of my brother’s return, but he is on his way back to you. He did not leave London and though the… ah… _hoppa í gegnum rúm…_ ”

“Teleportation,” Hela chimed in.”

“Yes, _óþolinmóð Frænka_ ,” Thor said.

Tony knew that one, it meant, “impatient niece.” Not surprisingly, Thor used it with Hela a lot.

“ _Segja það! Segja það!_ ” Hela urged. Another familiar phrase, “Tell him!”

“I do not want to!” Thor almost whined.

“Just say it, Uncle Thor,” Hela sighed.

“Say what, Thor?”

“Forgive me, Shield-Brother, but Hela wishes me to remind you…” There was a slight groan of springs, the sound of Thor taking a seat on the couch.

“No, I will speak my own words, of what I have seen now, Shield-Brother, and in the past. We have a phrase, Anthony, _í stöðu sem auðveldlega mölbrotna_. That is to say, 'in a state of being easily shattered.' Does that have meaning?”

“I think so, Thor. Yeah. The word we use is 'fragile.'"

"Then I must tell you, Shield-Brother, that it was not my fath… ah, not the Allfather’s cruelty that brought Loki home to Asgard at that time, at the end of his long sojurn upon Midgard in the last century, but my mother’s concern, for my brother had become very unwell in his mind, and she feared for him. The inner potions of brain and blood—what do you call them?”

“Um… brain chemicals? Hormones?”

“Yes,” Thor agreed. “They wore terribly hard on him then, when he carried the child of his beloved, even more than when he waxed great with Narfi and Vali, that in truth that was difficult enough. These same internal potions are why, perhaps, he remembers so little of the time when our three sweetlings dwelt within him, for it seems each time the burden of the youngling in his womb increases upon him.”

“Each pregnancy gets harder.”

“Such is the truth!” Thor agreed. “And besides, Shield-Brother, my Loki has lately known such pain of the body, such weariness and sorrow, I fear that he truly will shatter, both to his own harm, and because the might of the mage within him becomes released as his iron control upon it weakens. That might well be a fearsome thing.”

“Loki unable to hold back his magic? I can see that it might.” Tony sank on the edge of the bed, rubbing his forehead. “I’ll tell you what, Thor. I’m way on the weary side myself and I can’t think, but I will be good as gold with your brother from here on out, and completely watch out for him, and I also will get back to you on this, okay?”

“It is well,” Thor agreed. “We shall speak soon, and my niece would speak to you now.”

“I guess you’re stuck with me, then, Uncle Tony,” Hela said. “And may I just remark, what the fuck?”

“Language, young lady.”

“It is English, I believe. Your native tongue.”

“That whole Lokisdottir last name isn’t wasted on you, is it, Empress? I mean, you just can’t talk like that, with the potty-mouth, looking like you do. People will think you’re possessed.”

“What’s your excuse, then, for speaking as you do, pray tell?” Tony could hear her scowl—a radiantly beautiful but highly disapproving scowl—clearly in her voice.

“People expect it from me. Also, I’m a grownup. If I’m going to be your dad, Hela…”

“Which is currently debatable,” she broke in, after audibly scoffing. Her teenage years were obviously going to be fun, if this was a preview.

“Don’t say that, Empress.”

“ _Ó, til helvítis með þig_!” Hela full-on Valkyrja’d in his ear. “What are you trying to do to our family? Myrddin was gone, _Pabbi_ had the baby adopted by some very nice people. He didn’t ever want to leave him. He didn’t want to leave London. The Allfucker made him, the way he makes everybody do everything, and he didn’t want his little boy ending up like Narfi or Vali, or magically lobotomized like poor Sleipnir—and if you don’t know who he is, just Google it, s-l-e-i-p-n-i-r—shut up in a _fjandinn_ stable for the rest of his nearly-immortal days unless Odin hauls him out to play My Little Pony. You know how much _Pabbi_ loves us. You know it. And that immense love, still, when we three were made… as we were made. Myrddin was the love of _Pabbi’s_ life. They knew each other for nearly a thousand years, Uncle Tony—all the way from the Viking Age to the 1980’s. And you are such a shit! I don’t want to talk to you anymore!”

Apparently she meant this seriously, and with drama worthy of her _Pabbi_ at his very most dramatic, threw down the phone.

After a few seconds, Jöri picked up the receiver. “Uncle Tony,” he said without preamble, in his piping little-boy voice. “When Fen gets Big now, he fills up his whole bedroom.”

“Did he get Big because he was upset about your _Pabbi_?”

Tony could practically hear Jöri nodding.

“And you’re upset too?” Tony took a series of deep breaths, trying to calm his... whatever it actually might be that he was currently feeling. “How did you guys even know?”

“It went out in a sending like a great explosion,” Jöri said. “There was a vast noise and a terrible sadness. The… I am not sure of the words in English, Uncle Tony. In the language of my mind, it is, _þegar hjartað hlé þínar_?”

“When the heart breaks!” Hela yelled, apparently from across the room.

“Tell your sister, ‘thanks,’” Tony said drily. “And Jör—is Kurt there with you? Or Logan?”

“Logan says he doesn’t have time for your… um… poop at the moment, but I will bring the phone to Kurt. He has been some time with Fen, trying to soothe him to be small again, but now he is, and Logan is reading to him from his book, so Kurt can come away."

Sure enough, Tony soon heard the rapid squeak and thump of Kurt’s crutches approaching, and a few shuffling sounds, most likely his friend getting settled in the big chair with the ottoman, the one Loki always liked to read in by draping his body awkwardly sideways.

Tony’s chest hurt suddenly, as if the doctors had missed a big piece of shrapnel somehow, and it was just now piercing his heart.

“You know that sometimes you create these situations for yourself, _ja_?” Kurt said quietly. “Do you even understand why?”

“I bet you’re going to tell me.”

“You called me to the phone, Tony. We can discuss the weather in London if you prefer. Is it raining?”

Tony lifted a curtain. “Yup. Buckets. Looks chilly, too.”

“It is chilly here, also, though Logan may still take the children for an outing if it clears. Your youngest is no longer a giant wolf, by the way, and I’ve called the usual vendor to repair the window in his room. There was a tail incident.”

“His or yours?”

Kurt gave a soft laugh. “In this case, his. A thirty-foot wolf has quite a sizable tail.”

“So when Fen got Big…”

“Oh, yes,” Kurt said. “Perfectly enormous. I believe he even frightened himself. Logan’s with him now, reading _Fen’s Book_ to him, so he’s calm again.”

“ _Fen’s Book_?” Tony asked faintly.

“You know, the book Lo made for Fen. It’s on your StarkPad, Loki said.” Kurt paused. “ _Die Kinder_ can’t feel him and neither can I. Can you?”

“I’ll try, Kurt,” Tony said. “Promise I’ll try.  I didn't say anything out loud, it was only a thought, but I guess what I just didn't get, before this, is that for Loki there's no difference--like he's supposed to listen to one and ignore the other?  And this particular thought was so... nasty, Kurt.  So mean-spirited.  Why'd it even pop into my head?  I didn't mean any of it." Tony paused, his eyes leaking all over his face. Despite some food and his shower, he felt hollow, gritty and gross. He didn’t know what to do, and he was just so fucking tired.

“ _Ach_ , Tony, _mein armer Freund_ , I know it wasn’t deliberate. You were exhausted and incautious, and Loki had taken you by surprise.” The receiver moved away from Kurt’s mouth. “ _Es gibt keinen Grund mich mit Blicken zu durchbohren, Kaiserin. Und jawohl, wenn Sie mich nicht respektieren können, dann muss ich wohl förmlich werden!._ "”

Tony began to see how Kurt kept order in the kid-mutant herd. He’d barely understood a word, but that was a teacher-voice if he’d ever heard one, while still maintaining just as level and kind a tone as always.

“ _Verzeihst Du mir, Onkel Kurt. Ich werde gut sein_ ,” answered a subdued Hela.

“You’re good, Kurt. And since when does my kid speak German?”

“She surprised me with it yesterday. Apparently she has Loki’s ear for languages. I only told her not to look daggers at me, and if she couldn’t be respectful to me, I’d address her formally, and not as a friend. To which she apologized nicely, and said she’d be good, and so, we are friends again, _ja_ , Hela?”

“Yes, Uncle Kurt,” Hela answered, sounding subdued and sniffly. Hela who never cried. Never.

“What do I do, Kurt?” Tony asked, in desperation.

“For now? Go to bed. You’re exhausted and not thinking clearly. Knowing my _lieber_ Loki, he will stalk dramatically around his familiar city in the pouring rain for a bit, feel angry at you, and possibly weep, but in the end he’ll return to where you are.”

“But…”

“Loki is committed to you, Tony. Don’t you know that by now? He wants to work through your troubles and have the two of you fight through to the other side, stronger for the struggle. If he won’t allow a lack of self-love to destroy what you have together, don’t you do the same. Don’t create trouble for yourself, _lieber Freund_ , but if it arises, never run from it. Have courage. Speak to one another honestly, but always with respect and love. Your children are fine and all will be well.”

Kurt was right. Kurt was always right, so Tony gave him a heartfelt, “Thanks, Fuzzy, I owe you,” said goodbye and fell onto the bed in his boxers, not even bothering to pull back the covers.

 

Tony woke to the sound of the shower running. A quick glance at his phone told him he’d slept for over ten hours, borne out by the fact that the sky outside the windows (he’d never gotten around to closing the curtains) was pure darkness. He was also covered warmly with a blanket, which he was fairly certain hadn't been the case when he fell asleep.

He yawned hugely, stretched at the same intensity, and it was only then that the memory of his enormous fuck-up punched him straight in the stomach. That and the realization that he needed to piss so badly his molars were floating.

Add to that realization that it had to be either his errant fiancé in the shower or the world’s most hygiene-conscious burglar. And if it was Loki… Tony was torn between so not wanting to go in there, and almost wanting to weep because Loki had come back, he really had come back to him, just like Kurt said he would, which meant there was actually a fighting chance of things turning out okay.

Meanwhile, necessity was necessity.

He rapped softly on the door, calling out, “So sorry to interrupt, babe. I’ve slept the day away and have desperate room of requirement needs."

Loki didn’t answer, though he could most likely hear. He had ears like a bat.

Tony went in anyway, groaning with relief when he’d finished what he’d come for.

“Loki?” He flushed.

From behind the elegant etched-glass shower door came an unholy shriek, followed in short order by the door whooshing open on its runners and a very wet, very naked Loki exploding outward into the bathroom proper.

“ _Hvað í fjandanum_ , Tony!” he panted, spraying water all over the equally elegant chessboard floor. “You have scalded me! I am scalded!”

Dramatic arm gestures followed.

Tony couldn’t help himself, he started laughing. It was like fucking Kabuki Opera (thanks again for that one, Pepper).

“Oh, Christ, Lok. I’m sorry. Who’d have thought The Savoy would have crappy plumbing?"

Loki thumped the toilet seat lid shut, plunked himself down on it and glared at Tony. “You boiled me alive, and you find it humorous?”

“Not that you got hurt. Of course not. Only…” From the expression on Loki’s face, he knew any words he uttered might well be his last, so instead he grabbed a bath sheet off the towel warmer and wrapped it tenderly around his fiancé.

Out of the hot water, Loki had started shivering, and the skin on the left side of his neck, over his shoulder and down his chest really was lobster-red.

“Oh, my poor baby, I really did get you, didn’t I? Are you okay?”

Loki looked down at the massive red blotches, scratching absently. “Not that badly. _Gott im Himmel!_ ”

Tony couldn’t help but laugh again—Loki was a natural mimic. “The Kurt voice sounds adorable on you. Speaking of which…?”

“I rang home, yes. Received a tongue lashing from our daughter. Spoke with Kurt at length, and Thor for a little. For _Jul_ I shall most certainly buy my brother one of those large telephone receivers intended for the very elderly, which he can plug into his mobile and actually speak with me without dropping the _fjandinn_ phone nine million times. That was hyperbole again.”

“We’re bringing out a new StarkPhone the size of his face next November.”

“Ah, in time for _Jul_ , Chanukkah and the birth… er… Christmas. Sound marketing.”

“Thank you for your approval. We’re getting Shaq to do the promos.”

Loki nodded. “Also clever.”

“You have no idea who Shaq is, do you?” Tony challenged as he shut off the water, which had returned to a perfectly acceptable temperature, though a little hotter than Loki usually liked it. He took a second towel from the warmer and started in on drying his fiancé’s hair.

After a moment, Loki’s arms went around his waist, his face pressed to Tony’s chest. “I am well, in truth, only greatly startled. And ‘Shaq’ is the familiar name for Shaquille O’Neal, a marvelously large and genial man of African heritage, who in the past played your Midgardian-American game of basketball. I met him at an event given by Messrs. Houghton and Mifflin, because he had also participated in the writing of a book for younglings, and his and mine were released within days of one another. I found him quite a pleasant fellow, and as he was yet considering your business proposal, I vouched for your character and encouraged him to accept. I am pleased to hear arrangements are finalized.”

He pressed his cheek against Tony’s skin, holding him even tighter. “He said that any time we found ourselves in Boston and wished to observe the Celtics at play, he might easily ‘score us courtside seats.’ Are there courts in the game of basketball, as in tennis? It does not seem likely. Is that not the sport in which one propels a ball through a hoop, similar in nature to the _juego de pelota_ of the Mesoamericas? Also known as _pitz_ in classical Mayan, or _ullamaliztli_ in Nahuatl, if that is helpful.”

“Not even remotely, darling Loki. But shame on me for doubting your knowledge, and thank you for the recommendation.”

“We are a team, yes?” Loki held him even tighter, so tight it was just short of painful. “I so dislike to be apart from you, dearest fiancé. It was that which drove me nearest to madness when S.H.I.E.L.D. held me, the thought that not only were we apart, but that you wanted me no longer. This morning that fear came to me again, and so I did not remove myself to Wales, or anywhere, but wished only to return to you.”

“I wondered if you’d gone and come back. Is there time to do that in a day?”

“You are accustomed to America, belovéd. From here to Cardiff is no difficult distance. I did not go there, however, only so far as Paddington Station. For divers reasons, I ought not to have teleported.”

“For divers reasons, huh?”

“Meaning for many different reasons.”

“Yup, got that,” Tony answered, almost weak-kneed with relief. He was home. His Loki was home, and Hela was right, he’d never even left London. “I believe my hair is dry enough,” Loki told him. “Would you put the product in it for me? I enjoy your touch as you do so, my love.”

Tony smiled. They so weren’t fighting anymore. “As you wish.”

He located the tube of Loki’s hair glop in his suitcase and returned to the bathroom, rubbing it bit by bit through Loki’s curls, his fiancé leaning into him bonelessly. He never would have guessed from the severe, bone-straight style Loki had worn at their first unfortunate meeting, but his fiancé’s hair was an actual force of nature that could literally only be entirely tamed by sorcery. Straightening irons and lotions had no power over its dark magic. Loki could fuss over it for hours and within fifteen minutes you could practically hear the springs reforming, trying to levitate off his head.

Sometimes, when it had first been growing out from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s evil buzz-cut, Tony had been hard pressed not to laugh when he’d wake up to find the head next to his on the pillow had overnight sprouted tiny tentacles. Fortunately, he’d somehow known better than to tease Loki about them, however gently, the curls being, apparently, yet another thing the good folk of Assholegard had mocked him about.

“There you are, babe,” Tony said quietly, putting as much love into ordinary words as he could.

Loki glanced up at him, his eyes wide, strangely innocent, breathtakingly green. He looked weirdly younger, the small lines erased from his forehead, from around his eyes.

Tony wasn’t sure if he’d felt younger, moving through the city of his past, or if he’d forgotten, momentarily, to replace a mask he normally wore—if maybe this was Loki’s real face when he wasn’t in dire pain or under stress, and if, for daily use, he aged his looks up ten years or so, doing Tony the kindness of saving him from comments about boy-toys and cradle-robbing. He took it for what it was—an act of love, Loki sacrificing his own vanity for Tony’s.

“Jesus, Lok,” Tony said hoarsely, “You look about twenty.”

The lines reappeared instantly, but Loki’s expression of innocence didn’t alter. “I appear as I always appear, dearest fiancé. A trick of the light, perhaps…?” He stood up, Tony moving smoothly backward with his lover’s motion, but not away.

“What do I always say, Lok?"

“Yes, I am aware. Don’t bullshit, et cetera.” Loki let the bath sheet slip from his shoulders, looking down into Tony’s face with what he always thought of as his fiancé’s Egyptian cat expression. He slipped past, taking care to brush Tony’s side with his hip just so, completely as if he hadn’t planned it, treating Tony to a long look at his lithely muscled back and shapely ass.

“Such a tease,” Tony breathed.

Loki shot him a long look over one alabaster shoulder. His voice dropped low as he murmured, “I want you now, beloved. Bare, and in me.”

Tony had a moment of, _Oh, that’s right, because…_

Loki shot him another look, 100% imperious. “Was I unclear? I meant now, beloved!”

“Yes, bossy,” Tony laughed, but, really, who was he to argue? Without the condom, Loki felt exactly like silk inside, the kind that’s all roughness and smoothness mixed together, the texture of him on Tony’s cock almost more pleasurable than he could bear, until at the end he came so hard he lost his ability to think or breathe or anything for what must have been at least a ten minutes.

He could only lie on Loki’s chest, against Loki’s sex-heated skin, Loki’s voice murmuring in his ear. After that time, Loki lifted him away, Tony’s head on his own pillow, his fiancé regarding him from a distance of a few inches, his lips curved into a blissful smile.

“Best-beloved Anthony,” he said. “I am sorry, this morning, I did not take your emotions into my consideration. I became overcome with excitement and apprehension, and the unexpected presence of Martha, my old friend of the past, confused me somewhat. In my self-absorption I thought not of _your_ apprehensions.”

“You weren’t ever meant to hear what flew through my brain, Lok. It was just the kind of thing that pops into our weak mortal heads when we’re worried, tired and cranky. That’s really it. I never meant to hurt you, and I wish to hell that instead of being a dick I’d gone along to be supportive instead. Sometimes we mortals of Midgard are no better than your Assgardians, I’m afraid.”

“Not mine, certainly.” Loki paused to giggle. “Assgardians.”

Tony laughed too—at his fiancé’s wry, amused expression, not at his own joke. “So, was your meeting okay, or did it suck?”

“I have not yet met my son,” Loki confessed. “After my teleportation, I was weary to the point of being unwell. The Minister sent his assistant, however, to Paddington Station, and she was also revealed to be an old friend of mine. I ate a little, we spoke, and she brought me here. I have slept on the sofa in the other room so as not to disturb you.”

“You met the Minister’s assistant? Would this be the immovable Anthea?”

“So she calls herself in these days.”

“’So she calls herself,’ huh? Meaning she had another name. Something well known, I’m betting. So let me guess—Mata Hari?”

“I shall not dignify that with a response.”

“Rumpelstiltskin?”

“An even sillier guess, and male.”

“Lady Godiva? Queen Guinevere? Florence Nightengale? Jane Austen? Queen Boadicea?”

“Mmn, you were closer with Queen Guinevere.”

“Okay, so we’re talking Camelot, huh? The Lady of the Lake?”

“Yes, she has downgraded to the Lady of the Paddington Station Drinking Fountain, because times are hard for everyone.”

“Now who’s being silly? I think I got it though—Morgana Le Fay? Only, I didn’t think you’d be friendly, you being firmly on team Merlin.”

“She had much to avenge,” Loki said. “The death of her father, the defilement of her mother. She did what she must, in her own eyes, and by the beliefs of her people. But those things are long past and will not come again. She is a powerful and determined woman, and has always treated me with grace and fairness.”

“I still wish she’d let you off the hook from this little project,” Tony said. “Thor said you’ve had a harder and harder time with each baby. You’ve got to know that worries me, babe.”

“Indeed.” Loki’s long hand cupped his cheek, his thumb brushing over Tony’s beard. “I delight to look upon you, _hjarta hjarta minn_.”

“I delight to look upon you too, my subject-changing sweetie,” Tony answered. “I love you beyond my lowly mortal power to express.”

“You do well,” Loki answered huskily. His eyes closed, his face relaxing into stillness. “You do well.” Tony lay watching him, his beautiful guy, his gorgeous god, stroking Loki’s almost-completely-dry hair.

He almost wished there was a Someone he could pray to, that he would never, never, never hurt his love again. With that in his thoughts, he fell back to sleep.

Tony woke to Loki, still naked, prowling the suite. The air felt vaguely steamy, perfumed lightly by his fiancé’s orange-bergamot-vanilla hypoallergenic soap, hand-made in small batches by monks in Vermont and apparently another of Loki’s barters. Being completely devoid of art snobbery, he’d redesigned their labels and packaging to feature his uniquely gorgeous watercolors in exchange for a lifetime supply of delicious-smelling cleanliness.

They’d all driven up to the monastery as a family for a factory tour over one long weekend, and even if the monks (who were also friends of Kurt’s and spoke only in Latin) had been scandalized by their relationship, they’d been nothing but gentle and kind. Several of them were mutants, at least one of them even more obviously so than Kurt, and they’d all been super sweet to the kids, some of the younger ones romping with them in the snow while the adults toured. Loki had somehow managed not to say the words “Christian man-god” even once, and Tony had kept his own thoughts to himself. They were good guys, true brothers, and they didn’t need his shit, however accurate.

Weirdly, Loki hated to lay down cash for anything, if he could avoid it—Tony rather expected the Assfather had made him beg for every penny from the Royal Exchequer. and Loki had learned to barter, raise his own funds or go without. He also gave language lessons to the twin grandsons of a Brooklyn tailor in exchange for his superlatively excellent dress shirts, and it always gave Tony a shock to hear his fiancé, holding class in the penthouse living room, instructing the boys in impeccable modern English, instead of his usual King James version, as he taught them Latin and French. He suspected the modern English was just another foreign language to Loki, one he could speak when he chose to, while his ordinary speech reflected the workings of his mind.

“I require food!” Loki was declaiming as he prowled. “I require food at once! How is it to be obtained, belovéd? Aha!”

Tony climbed out of bed, stretched, pulled on his robe and ambled into the suite’s sitting room. “I see someone discovered the fruit basket.”

“Is it an earth tradition? Customary?” Loki asked, chowing down on a pear—he was clearly back in competitive eater mode, as the fruity pyramid was already missing its top three layers.

“Kind of,” Tony answered. “In classy hotels buttering up VIP guests.”

“I require much toast,” Loki commanded. “Oatmeal bread or some such, and marmalade. No butter, though it was your ‘buttering’ that reminded me. Many, many scrambled eggs and a large pot of tea. Goat’s milk if they have it, rice milk if they do not. What else does one eat? Aha, we are in London!”

“Did you really just say ‘aha’ twice in five minutes?”

“Kippers. I shall have kippers. And please, I beg of you, Tony, have them make it appear rapidly? I am desperate.”

Dialing room service, Tony glanced up. Loki wasn’t joking, he really was desperate—shaking, four shades paler even than usual, eyes watering. He added ginger ale to the order, and a full English with coffee for himself, watching as the pyramid of fruit lost another couple layers.

“Lok, slow down, you’ll make yourself sick eating that much fruit, that fast. Here…” He dug into his carry-on for a couple of Loki-approved protein bars. “Switch to these, okay?”

His fiancé took them gratefully, looking at Tony with haunted eyes. “A thousand thanks, belovéd. I ought to have been so provident.”

Tony brought Loki his robe, helping him into it. He wasn’t shaking so much as shivering, or maybe both at the same time. “Are you actually cold, Lok? When are you ever cold?”

“I cannot find warmth,” Loki admitted. “Even my bones are frozen.”

“You didn’t have your coat yesterday. Did you get chilled?”

“I was only briefly outdoors,” Loki answered, munching frantically on his protein bars. “Wilhelm is so very hungry, Tony, it is nearly more than I can bear. Perhaps it is that which makes me shiver. I know not.”

“Wilhelm?” Tony asked faintly.

“Wilhelm Lokison Stark is a fine, strong name, don’t you think? Thor would like us to call him Thor, but I think we will not.”

“I’m not so sure we’re going to call him Wilhelm, either,” Tony said. _Wilhelm?_

“But he says it is his name,” Loki explained. “Tell me when the food arrives, please? Just now I am going to be sick, as you were correct about the excess of fruit, belovéd.”

He shot off for the bathroom.

Tony sighed. Poor Loki. He knew he ought to go in, to rub his fiancé’s back, hold back his hair and such. Only his love really did prefer to be private about such things, and he himself had been cursed with a slightly touchy gag reflex, so sometimes he didn’t help matters.

After about five minutes he rapped on the door. “Lok, you okay in there?”

“Has the food arrived yet? Have you thought to use bribery?” Loki asked before he threw up again.

“How can you ask about food while you’re actually puking?”

“I do not puke, as you say. I experience morning sickness. Bribe them!”

Tony bribed, and got a new arrival time of five minutes.

Loki emerged, barefoot, wearing sweatpants (clear indication that he felt horrible, Loki owned pj’s fancier than some of Tony’s tuxedos, even though half the time he slept nude) and a t-shirt, his hairline wet with sweat, just as the knock came on the door. The spare blanket cuddled against his chest, he sank down on one end of the couch and struggled to wrap the cover around his shoulders, visibly favoring his left arm.

Tony signed for their meal and allowed their server—a college-aged woman with blonde hair nearly as curly as Loki’s—to set up everything on the coffee table. Tony gave her a tip that ventured beyond generous and into the realm of the obscene.

“You may send her forth with the tip you promised he who cooked our meal,” Loki said hoarsely. “Her heart is without deceit.”

“How do you know that?” she asked, studying his face. “That is to say…”

“Have you ever watched the American television programme _The Mentalist_?” he asked, with a one-sided Loki smile, charming as all hell despite obviously feeling like crap.

“Really? That’s amazing!”

Loki smiled again, warmly and sweetly. Fucking heartbreaker.

The girl pushed her cart from the room in a high degree of fluster, but not before accepting the tip to be passed on to their chef.

“'Have you ever watched _The Mentalist_?'” Tony laughed, “You are so full of shit, Lok.”

That got him a Loki smirk. “Ah, but the chef will remember your swift largesse, and will see to our needs speedily in future. There is method in my madness, beloved. It is your Midgardian proverb of the catching of greater numbers of bees with syrup than with vinegar.” Loki removed the steel catering cover from his plate and began to inhale scrambled eggs.

“I think you’ll find that one’s actually ‘flies,’ babe. ‘You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.’”

“I dislike flies, and shall not mention them whilst I am eating. And mention not… that substance of amber stickiness either, if you please.”

Loki and his honey-phobia—how had he forgotten?

“Again, slow down, babe,” Tony said gently. “You don’t want to get sick again.” He found one of Loki’s green straws where he’d stashed them in a drawer and popped open a ginger ale. “Try to drink some of that first. You know you’ll feel better.” He sat beside Loki on the sofa, rubbing his back lightly as he drank.

Loki, sighing, leaned against him, cheek against the top of Tony’s hair. “I so entirely overspent my energy yesterday. Today I shall rest, except that I have asked my old friend Rupert to tea, which can be obtained either here, or in one of the restaurants downstairs. He will bring to me a piece or two about which he had questions, and discuss with me the project which brings us here, with which he is familiar, having discovered the site. You will like him, Tony, I think. He snarks well. Though you need not be here to meet him if you desire not to do so. Perhaps you wish to explore London, or some other pursuit, if talk of archaeology would be dull for you?”

“Is Rupert another of your _Societatum_ buddies?”

Loki shook his head. “We knew one another at Oxford, when he was young, reading archaeology and Classics. Rupert has a… lineage. His surname derives, in Old French, from “of the goat.”

“Is he gonna have hooves and hairy legs? ‘Cause I warn you, I would find that freaksome.”

Loki gave a soft laugh. “No hooves, I promise you, and his legs are no more hairy than your own, beloved. He has a brilliant mind and a dry wit, which you know I enjoy in a companion. In these days he sounds less… driven, of which I am glad. He was not a happy young man, and drawn at times toward destruction and bad company, one _illt fantur_ — ah… evil bastard--in particular, a worshiper της διπρόσωπο θεό, ο Ιανός, of Ianus, two-faced chaos, and it cost him his great love. He was not the same after, though he remains of his progenitor, orτου θεού Πάνα, of the Greek god Pan, essentially the Greek me, more or less. And, no, before you ask, Rupert and I were not lovers—well, perhaps once or twice, drunkenly and desperate for succor, but not after _. Hjarta hans mölbrotna_ over Randall. Randall was the sweetest boy, much like Kurt, yet so fragile. So fragile.”

“His heart—what was that last word, Mr. Deathly-Ill-but-Talking-and-Thinking-in-Four-Languages?”

Loki considered a moment. “Shattered. His heart shattered, as would mine, were I to lose you, my great love.” He stroked Tony’s cheek tenderly. “Cease now your jealousy for Myrddin, or Rupert, or anyone, ever after, and know in your deepest self that you are my future, my Tony, _hjarta hjarta minn_.”

Tony couldn’t say anything, the lump in his throat was too big. For Loki to speak those words to him, especially after yesterday, after everything…

He squeezed Loki’s hand tight and, too emotional to look his way, busied himself removing the lid from his plate and munching a piece of bacon.

Loki snagged a second piece, nibbling thoughtfully. “This is a food of great deliciousness, Tony. Why have I not eaten it previously?”

“Uh… because you hate greasy things and can’t tolerate nitrates?”

“This bacon has no greasiness, it is crisp and wonderful, and being of excellent quality, is without your nitrates.”

“You can taste nitrates?”

“I can taste all harmful things, and detect their scents, as when I told you not to eat that chicken sandwich last month which poisoned you. I hoped that you have learned from the experience not to disregard me.”

“Yes, mom,” Tony laughed.

“Are such things obtainable in New York? Food of quality?”

“Well, sure. I mean, I guess. I never thought about it. Mrs. Ransome probably gets that kind of stuff for you all the time.”

“But as she does not provide our breakfasts, your minion orders the poisoned bacon.” Loki frowned. “That is typical.”

“J.A.R.V.I.S. orders the kind I’ve always ordered, Lok. It’s not personal. And was that an eyeroll?”

“I will not quarrel on this with you.” He brushed Tony’s cheek again, then touched his fingertips over his heart. “Not today. Never, in fact. You have great joy in the minion you have created, and I shall not attempt to make him less in your eyes, now or ever. This I pledge.”

“You mean way more to me than J.A.R.V.I.S., Lok. You know that, don’t you?”

“Clever Tony,” Loki said softly, which told him exactly nothing, and returned to listlessly eating his eggs.

“Don’t, if you don’t want them,” Tony said, rubbing between his robe-covered shoulder blades.

“I fear I must,” Loki answered. “Your son is dreadfully demanding. However, my body requires a mere half hour to extract the nutrients.”

Tony got what he was saying. “Oh, my poor baby. Is it awful?”

“Rather, at the moment,” Loki admitted. “Though, as I recall, it will not last out the month. Mummy gave me potions that were very soothing the first time. Perhaps Hank McCoy might concoct their equivalent, which would help me, yet not harm our small one. I did not like to ask before, as he was so cross with us, but ought we to do so, do you think?” He dropped the lid back over his plate. “No more for now.”

“I’ll call him,” Tony promised. “Meanwhile, do you want another ginger ale? Do you want to lie down?”

“I want that you would consume your own breakfast, belovéd, and drink your coffee. After, you may cuddle and distract me, and keep one eye on the clock. I shall lie on the sofa until the time is past.”

“Oh, babe.” Tony pushed the table forward and slid down to sit on the floor, keeping hold of Loki’s hand. He finished his breakfast quickly, surprised at how hungry he felt—but then, travel always hit him that way.

Loki appeared to be sleeping, or at least in a deep doze. Tony sipped his coffee slowly, watching his love's face—calm and peaceful for once, not at the mercy of a million emotions and memories, again painfully young. So beautiful.

He forgot to watch the time, but Loki continued to sleep peacefully, with no sign of discomfort except a little light shivering. Tony climbed to his feet, a bit stiff from his floor-sitting, but soon worked out the kinks. He moved the dishes to the table, pulled the duvet from the bed and tucked it around his fiancé, glad to see the shivering stop soon after.

Quietly as he could, he pushed the armchair up close to the couch and fetched his StarkPad. Time for some backstory.


	4. Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony catches up with Loki's achievements. Loki struggles a little with Midgardian culture, then meets up with both an old friend and the son he left behind for safekeeping against his father's interference. The outcome of the pseudo-steward's attack begins to catch up with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Loki's so upset about is " _Space Oddity_ " (which may or may not be about an astronaut), from David Bowie's 1969 album _David Bowie (Space Oddity)._
> 
> "head-rush"=when a person gets dizzy from jumping up too fast after sitting
> 
> "resting sneer (one of many options) face"=the expression a person's face naturally falls into when he or she isn't paying attention.
> 
> "Magic Fingers" is a coin-operated system, found almost entirely in motels, that for a quarter supposedly delivers a mattress massage. In truth, it shakes the bed in an annoying, totally unmassagelike way.
> 
> " _Avalon_ " is a song by Roxy Music from the 1982 album of the same name.
> 
>  _Cum autem longior fuerit tibi idi_ =it has been too long since I have seen you
> 
>  _eructavit cor meum gaudium omnium vestrum est visum, amice_ =my heart overflows with joy at the sight of you, my friend

* * *

After half an hour on his StarkPad, stunned by what he was seeing, Tony put the device to sleep and called down to the concierge to see if a hardcover copy of _Fen’s Book_ could be obtained and sent to his room A.S.A.P. The concierge assured him that would be no problem, that due to their popularity, both of the author’s books were constantly on hand at the newsagent’s-slash-bookstand in the lobby and if Tony liked, copies could be brought to him in under a quarter-hour.

“Fantastic,” Tony said, “Let’s make that happen.” He rubbed his face with both hands, vigorously, to shake off the stunned feeling, then just shook his head at his own utter… was cluelessness the word he wanted?

 _Yeah,_ Tony thought, it probably was. True, the world of publishing wasn’t particularly one he followed, but still… You’d think even he would have noticed his very own fiancé’s name on the New York Times Bestsellers List. You’d think Pepper, at least, would have mentioned something.

Except--Tony would have bet serious money on it-- Loki had totally asked her not to. He’d have wanted Tony to locate the books on his StarkPad and judge them for their own merit, for the care and beauty and soul he put into them, not for revenue generated.

All those times he’d thought Loki was just surfing the net when he spent hours on his laptop (and he knew Loki did enjoy his Pinterest, now and then, but he still found the internet in general slightly mind-boggling, especially the way pictures could now be shared anywhere on earth with the touch of a button, and show him things he’d never even heard of), with Tony yakking away at him because what he had to say was so damn important, totally oblivious as to what Loki was actually doing. Just like he’d thought that when his fiancé spent so much time in the room they’d designated as his “studio” he was randomly futzing around with paints to amuse himself or relieve stress or something—because the murals he’d done to decorate the kids’ rooms were beyond amazing, and the monks' labels were pretty, but that was the end of it, right? It was only a hobby.

He’d somehow assumed Loki was still in rest, recovery and learn-about-life-on-Midgard mode, when really there was so much happening with him, when he was working like crazy to create the person he meant to be, a whole new person for a whole new world.

While he waited for the books to arrive from below, the not-to-be-denied businessman in him made Tony wake up his StarkPad again to take a quick look at the financials. And… damn! If print publication suffered its long-predicted death that year, it sure as hell wouldn’t be because a certain Mr. Lo Stark had let down the team.

Loki had being playing his cards pretty damn close to the vest, that was for sure. The books hadn’t even been out for that long, and already the numbers were staggering. The word-of-mouth must have taken off like wildfire.

Tony was so fucking proud of him. He wished Loki would be that proud of himself.

He swore to the gods of Asgard—or wherever--he was going to start paying attention.

He intended to know, from here on out, what his fiancé had going on, and to give him props and support every step of the way. Loki deserved no less.

Lo Stark. When he gave it some thought, Tony got a little choked up again. Loki had chosen to use _his_ name for the parts of his life that had the most meaning, his art and his writing (the kids would be the third part to that equation, he guessed, and there too, Loki had been right behind the creation of the adoption papers, no argument, no question).

Tony knew suddenly that Kurt—wise as always--had been right, absolutely. If things ever went south between the two of them, it wouldn’t be Loki’s doing. Not ever.

Tony found this fucking humbling, and just hoped against hope it wouldn’t ever be his fault, either.

The choked up sensation gave way to a ridiculously warm and fuzzy feeling. Loki loved him. There wasn’t any question. There never _had_ been any question. Loki loved him.

He glanced over to his sleeping fiancé’s face. Loki looked so lovely, and so peaceful, a slight smile hovering on his lips. Tony wondered what he was dreaming. Probably making sweet mischief in his sleep.

“I love you, babe. So, so much,” he said softly.

Loki snuggled down deeper into his blankets. Tony couldn’t help but smile too. With a few taps of his finger, he jumped over to Amazon and started skimming reviews, almost shocked that he couldn’t find a single bad one. Not one. Not even a review that was four stars instead of five. The reviewers called _Fen’s Book_ “poetic,” “magical,” “a modern classic” and “a gorgeous celebration of imagination.” The many, many young (and older, too) readers of _Sons of Asgard_ mostly said “You must read this book immediately, if not sooner,” and, “I told all my friends,” and even, “This book changed my life, it’s probably the best book I ever read.”

Maybe Loki never had been the god of lies, Tony considered. Maybe, instead, he was the god of storytellers, and Odin—surprise, surprise--was just too much of an asshole to know the difference.

While he was in the book-buying neighborhood, Tony downloaded the audiobooks, about which the consensus seemed to be, “I don’t like author-read books all that much, usually, but Lo Stark could be a famous actor or something! His voice is like velvet. I could listen to it over and over again.”

 _Well_ , Tony thought, _Can't really argue with that one_.

When the discrete knock came on his door, Tony answered, accepting the Savoy shopping bag and tipping the delivery kid. As an afterthought, while he was up, he called down for tea to be delivered at four and stuck the breakfast dishes out in the hallway for collection. And thus was housekeeping achieved, for the moment.

Loki shifted slightly, murmuring something too soft for Tony to hear.

“You okay, Lok?” he asked. “You need anything?”

Loki smiled sweetly, but his eyes didn’t open. He snuggled down even deeper.

“I love you,” Tony said again—he couldn’t help himself. And anyway, Loki deserved to hear it a million times a day, waking or sleeping.

He returned to his chair and opened the picture book. He’d start with that one, then move on. Four hours later, his eyes wet and his ass completely numb, unable to postpone his room of requirement needs a second longer, he set down _Sons of Asgard_ on the coffee table and padded as quietly as he could to the bathroom.

Apparently not quietly enough. When he emerged, Loki was sitting up in a muddle of covers.

“Sweetheart, you’re up. Did you need the r of r? I’m done.”

“Mum?” Loki responded, sounding beyond confused. His head was hanging down, hair obscuring his face. “I feel extremely odd, as if stuffed with clouds. Quite heavy ones. Where is…?”

“You’re still half asleep, babe. It’s called jetlag. There’s only me here. Tony.”

“Tony?” Loki repeated, looking up. He did look pale, and even after all that sleep his eyes still had significant dark circles as well as being crazy red—not _Jötunn_ red, but bloodshot as hell.

“Gods, I am in desperate need of showering. What is the time?” He paused, as if listening to something. "What is a consulting detective?"

“Just before three. And, to the second question, no idea. Some kind of private eye, maybe? I've never heard the term before, but that's my guess."

"Private...?" Loki rubbed his eyes. "Ugh. They itch."

"Don't rub. That'll just make it worse. Investigator. They look into things, like the police, but for money."

"Ah." Loki considered. "As in _Murder She Wrote,_ only for financial compensation?"

"You watch too much TV, Lok. And that's the general idea, though I think you're right, I don't believe she charged for her services."

"I was confined to bed for nearly three months and could not use my hands. I wrote my book _Sons of Asgard_ by speaking at my laptop after Kitty configured it to hear my commands, whilst you were busy, the children were being schooled, and I enjoyed few visitors. What else would you have me do, scrub floors as S.H.I.E.L.D. did? I never watch television these days unless we are viewing as a family."

 _Whoa, zero to upset Loki in, like one minute_ , Tony thought. _Is that a record, Stark?_

"Babe, I totally wasn't thinking," he said. "You must have been bored to tears, and I would have done exactly the same, and definitely not managed to write a novel along the way. Which I have been reading, just so you know, and it is absolutely fucking fantastic. You know I'm not really that much of a reader most of the time, but I was so caught up in it my ass fell asleep from sitting in the same position turning page after page. So..."

Tony dropped down next to Loki on the couch, cupped his face between both hands and gave him a long, slow, warm kiss. "You rock, my amazing Loki."

Loki gazed at him with so much affection in his bloodshot eyes, Tony could hardly bear to look. "You rock also, _hjarta hjarta minn._

He paused again, a grin stealing over his face.  "Only not so much as I do. The quality of my rocking is definitely superior.

Tony laughed. "You'll get no arguments from me, babe. Now, is it all right with you if I call in housekeeping for the bed, and general tidying? I already ordered tea for four o’clock, for your guest, but does Wilhelm want something to tide him over until then?”

Loki’s face lighted yet again, with the most adorable grin Tony had ever seen. “You called him Wilhelm, belovéd!”

“Hey, who am I to argue, right? Our kid says it's his name, it's his name.” Tony pulled Loki close again, kissing behind his ear, then down his sensitive throat to his collar bone. Loki’s skin was much warmer than usual. “You’re very toasty. Everything okay?”

“I have been swathed in blankets, sleeping deeply. I feel only heavy with dreams—and perhaps with your jetlag, as you call it. Will you order sushi for me? Only not salmon or tuna, I believe, for I have heard they may contain mercury, which may be harmful to mortal younglings. Even if concern is unwarranted, I would not take the chance of harming our baby.”

“Good idea,” Tony answered, giving Loki a final cuddle, Loki snuggling back into him, stifling a yawn against his shoulder.

“I slept so well! I cannot think when I have slept better.”

“Okay, snuggle bunny.” Tony rubbed his fiancé’s plush-covered shoulders. Loki had squirmed his sleepy self halfway into his lap. “I’m enjoying this too, but you have a guest coming and I don’t want you to be starving, so you go do your thing, I’ll do mine—and don’t forget to take your clothes into the bathroom with you. You don’t want to blind the housekeeping staff with your naked beauty.”

“Perhaps they would kneel and worship me then, just as you do.” Loki laughed.

“Nope, I got used to it gradually. They’d be overwhelmed. Maybe blinded. Besides which, I’m greedy. I want to keep you all for myself.”

“Oh, very well then,” Loki said, mock-pouting, and disappeared into the bathroom. After a moment or two, the shower started.

Tony made his calls, dropped the covers back onto the bed, and decided to change his own clothes to something slightly nicer than sweats and a t-shirt. When he’d done so, he stopped a minute, grinning, to listen to Loki happily singing a David Bowie song in the shower. Loki did love his Bowie.

“Tony!” he interrupted himself suddenly, “What is a junkie?” The water shut off.

Tony shook his head, still grinning to himself. Junkies and consulting detectives, what next?

“A person addicted to the drug heroin, Lok. It’s an opiate.”

The bathroom door flew open suddenly to reveal a frowning, naked Loki. “Tony, I have been deceived!”

“About what, babe?”

“I suspect that Major Tom, in the song, did not in truth fly into space on a rocketship, and his supposed flight was indeed a metaphor.”

“’Fraid that's a distinct possibility,” Tony answered.

The door closed again. A few minutes later. Loki emerged wearing a green sweater and charcoal slacks, hair styled but still dampish. He sank down on the couch, still slightly frowny and toting a box of Kleenex.

“I keep feeling myself on the verge of sneezing,” he explained. “I found the air of your aeroplane quite dry and also slightly strange in its odor. Perhaps that is the reason. It has made my throat scratchy also, as well as giving me _Jötunn_ -eyes. I have never before been on such a long flight. If I drink a great deal of water, will that help?”

Tony grabbed a bottle out of the minibar and tossed it his way, expecting Loki to catch it the way he always caught things, with an easy one-handed reach into the air, graceful and casual, as if he hardly even needed to look. Instead, though his hand went up as expected, it wasn’t even close. The plastic bottle smacked him full in the face.

“God, babe!” Tony practically bounded across the room. “God, are you okay? You never miss. You catch fucking arrows. I thought you saw it coming!”

“I…” Loki’s hand went up to touch the bright red spot on his forehead where the bottle had smacked him. “Why am I forever an idiot, asking question after question?” he asked, in genuine dismay. “Why do I understand nothing? What if I never understand, Tony? What if I am forever a fool and a dupe?”

“Loki, c’mon, babe.” Tony moved the bottle and the tissue box to the coffee table and sat down beside him. “Because you missed a bottle and a metaphor? No getting down on yourself, okay? You’re hardly a fool, and the beauty of metaphors is that you can take them whatever way you want—whether that’s Major Tom having an unsuccessful spaceflight or a bad drug experience. It’s your choice. Don’t let your crazy hormones put hurtful stuff into your head.”

“The drinking songs of Asgard are only about drinking, the battle songs about battle. There is no doubt to them. How could I ever have thought you Midgardians an unsubtle people?” Loki reached for a handful of tissues, then sank back into the cushions. “Why am I so tired, Tony? I have done nothing but sleep. And now my _fjandinn_ nose is running. I thought a shower would revive me as is usual, but I feel cross and achy and drained of life.”

Tony opened the water. “Drink. Don’t get dehydrated. You had some major morning sickness the past couple days, and way too much stress, when you already weren’t at your best. I’d like you to be very kind and gentle with my Loki, please, and not beat him up unnecessarily. Do you want me to call Rupert and cancel for you?”

Loki gulped down half the bottle, breathed for a few seconds, coughed a little, then drank the rest. “You were correct, Tony, I was terribly thirsty.” He screwed on the cap again and set the bottle back onto the table precisely. "Thank you, beloved."

“I wrote to Rupert,” he continued after a moment. “Once I was free again from S.H.I.E.L.D., and able to hold a pen. I… I wanted to explain, I suppose, that I was not… not that cruel creature on the television screen. That cruel creature with my face, pretending to be me. I have done things, Tony, out of anger or jealousy or pain—out of madness, even, I suppose one might say--that were far from kind or wise, but I would not… I would NOT! And yet no one believes. My mother did not. Thor still  does not, truly, in his heart, though he tries to love and forgive me. Steven does not, who once was fond of me, and now never will believe, though he tries to be kind, as is his nature. Rupert, however, wrote back to me, ‘Loki, I knew the moment that I saw in the films that your eyes were blue instead of green. It’s a bitter feeling to be lost, hag-ridden by some dark thing, and equally hard, afterwards, to heal. Please know that you are always my dear friend and that I will always believe in you.’ It was one of the few things in the last months that gave me the heart to live— along with you, of course, belovéd, and Kurt, and our most-adored children.”

Loki glanced up, studying Tony’s face, his eyes as red as if he’d been crying for hours, though Tony hadn’t seen a single tear.

“You break my heart sometimes, babe,” he said. “You know how much I hate to see you hurting.”

Loki fought for, and managed, a smile. “Be not brokenhearted on my account, Tony. I will mend. I merely feel everything overmuch these days, as you know, and that too will improve, I believe, as time progresses. Tell yourself it is merely a sign of the earliest stage, that eases as my body makes adjustment. And though we perhaps ought not to make the visit overlong, I desire to see Rupert very much indeed. It is only…”

He noticed the book lying on the coffee table. “Oh…! Tony, you have seen _Fen's Book_ also?”

“I started reading it on my StarkPad, but then I wanted to see it for real, the way you meant it to be seen. It’s so beautiful, Lok. I totally knew how talented you are, but this…”

Loki glanced down at his fingers, twisting together in his lap. A little flush of pink spread across his cheekbones.

“It’s kind of above and beyond, babe. Even knowing, I didn’t know.”

“I first read it to the younglings at work, at the Club of Boys and Girls,” Loki murmured. “We had a week of showings and tellings, of things we had made. I knew not then that the wife of Supervisor Jorge was personal assistant to a literary agent, and he persuaded me to allow him to take the pages to show to her, and also the flash drive which held _Sons of Asgard_ upon it.”

He gave a sudden sunny smile. “And now Anita, wife of Supervisor Jorge is a P.A. no longer, but has an office of her own, and clients also, of which I am one. They were both very kind to me, and worked mightily to persuade me that what I made was worthy, when I knew it not. I had only thought the younglings might enjoy the pictures, as they have no such woods and flowers where they dwell.”

Tony thought of the swirling, intricate naturescapes, pictures of otherworldly beauty and joy that Loki had painted (with his broken hands no less) and couldn’t even conceive of how he’d think them unworthy—but then he remembered the steady diet of insults his love had lived on all his life. His beloved paints had been taken away as something useless and childish when he was a young boy, replaced by weapons and endless hours of battle-training, and he’d been shamed for wanting them back again.

Loki could be a deadly fighter, but battle was not and never would be his soul, only something he’d been told to need.

“I know our world can be confusing sometimes, sweetheart,” Tony said, “But I’m pretty glad you decided to join us here on Midgard. The world is a better place with you in it.”

“Perhaps I will not always be confused, if I try very hard to learn,” Loki answered, with a slight smile. “And I now believe I hear the cart that bears my food approaching.”

They ended up splitting the sushi, sitting on the couch to be out of the way while the housekeeping staff returned everything to pristine condition. The truth was, Tony ate most of it, because even though Loki insisted he felt well, not nauseated in the least, he also didn’t seem overly enthused about what was usually far and away his favorite meal. He said it tasted slightly strange, and he wasn't very hungry after all. He would have tea with Rupert.

Tony actually suspected Loki might have a cold in the works, because his nose seemed to be running like a faucet, and he was sneezing regularly and coughing now and then. He’d been distant and upright while housekeeping was in the room, but the minute the cleaners left he leaned against Tony heavily, resting his head on his shoulder between frequent raids on the Kleenex box.

Once Rupert went home, Tony thought Loki might have a date with a big bowl of chicken soup and a night of falling asleep in front of the TV (with no comments made by his idiot fiancé). He pushed the plate away and wrapped his love up tightly in his arms.

“Hey, what’s up with you, Mr. Desperate-for-Affection? You missing the kiddoes?”

Loki nodded. “I believe that is much of it. I know well that dearest Kurt and Logan care for them beautifully, that they are safe and happy. I did not think, however, that I would feel so bereft from the lack of them. Perhaps it accompanies my emotions being so greatly magnified by my state of pregnancy.”

“I’m betting you’re not feeling up for going out tonight, huh? Not even if I dangled tickets to a Shakespeare play right in front of your lovely nose?”

Loki held him tightly and didn’t say anything.

Tony wasn’t going to freak out, but he now knew for sure that his sweetie wasn’t feeling great--and his lovely nose was actually starting to look a little Rudolph-like at that point, what with the frequent sneezing and blowing. If even the offer of a live performance of his beloved Shakespeare couldn’t perk Loki up, it looked like the chicken soup and early to bed was a sure thing. Meanwhile, it was nice to quietly cuddle him.

At four o’clock on the dot, a knock came on the door. Loki bounced to his feet, then stood swaying in place, clearly having given himself a massive head-rush from jumping up too fast.

“Whoa, babe, you okay? Don’t fall over!” Tony put his hands on his fiancé’s hips to steady him.

Loki laughed, pressing his hands to the sides of his skull. “The Bifrost exploded suddenly within my brain!”

“How about if you sit down, babe, and let me get the door?”

“It seems foolish, and yet…” He sank down, leaning back again into the cushions.

“Stay there, okay?” Tony commanded.

Loki gave a small nod, looking ghostly, coughing a few times into his tissues.

The polite knock sounded again, and Tony opened up.

“Good afternoon,” said a deep British voice that out-poshed even Loki’s. “Loki may have mentioned intending to have tea with a friend? I am that friend.”

“Yeah. Hi.” Tony stepped aside to let their guest in, shutting the door behind him. “Tony Stark. Loki’s fiancé. I’m not sure if he said…”

“Tony Stark, of Stark Industries?” Their guest gave a slight smile. “A prince of industry for our prince of Asgard? It seems fitting.”

Mr. Poshness, (possibly Rupert, descendant of the god Pan), raised an extremely British eyebrow at him over the frame of his wire-rimmed glasses, studying Tony intently. He was a tall man, nearly Loki’s height, still handsome in a peculiarly English way, though he looked to be a  decade or so older than Tony himself. He had intimidatingly intelligent pale-green eyes and a solidness that spoke more of regular hand-to-hand combat than it did frequent trips to the gym. The chain of a pocket watch crossed the front of his impeccably tailored tweed vest, going nicely with the rest of his impeccably tailored three-piece tweed suit.

Even the knot of his tie screamed, “I am classier than you in an entirely classic British way!”

“The Doctor, Henry Higgins or Rupert Giles?” Tony said.

The guy actually did have a fucking uncanny resemblance to the Rupert Giles on TV.

Loki’s old college buddy blinked.

“Actually, I’ve already discarded the notion of Henry Higgins,” Tony said. “You’re in too good of shape, and besides he was an asshole and I’m just not up for dealing with an asshole today.”

“I say…” the man began when Tony paused for breath. It was one way you could tell Loki wasn’t really British--he unrepentantly interrupted any time he damn well felt like it, but Tony was even worse.

“If you’re The Doctor you’re keeping your past memories in that pocket watch, and won’t remember anyway, so I’m gonna go with Rupert Giles. How’s Buffy?”

“Very well,” Rupert said, not batting an eye. “I shall convey my regards.”

“Stop teasing my friend, belovéd!” Loki got up, still slightly shaky but now wearing his brightest grin. “My dearest Rupert, _eructavit cor meum gaudium omnium vestrum est visum, amice._ ” They hugged. Tightly. Almost desperately on Loki’s part.

Rupert patted his back gently. “Dear Loki, _cum autem longior fuerit tibi vidi_ ,” he answered, holding Loki’s hands a moment even after he’d released him from the hug. At Loki’s gesture, he took a seat in the armchair.

“And, Tony,” he said in a drily humorous voice, “I promise I shall attempt to make those the last words in a dead language we speak this afternoon.”

“I just don’t have that converses-readily-in-Latin vibe to me, huh?”

Loki rubbed Tony’s knee with a slight attitude of, _Aw, aren’t you cute, sweetie_. He looked excited, perky even, but still definitely not at his best.

Even after umpteen years apart, Rupert noticed it too. “My dear friend, aren’t you well?”

“I’m pregnant!” Loki grinned. “And I bore triplets less than a year ago. My doctor’s a little put out with me.” He had on his innocent face.

Apparently, Rupert wasn’t fooled by perky Loki either. He leaned forward, fixing Loki with his pale green gaze. “Darling boy, what’s happened to you?”

Loki stared down at his hands, fingers twisting in his lap again. “My brother, mainly. And then the American government was rather unkind. You needn’t be concerned, dear Rupert. I improve constantly.”

“Need I ask--the handsome brother or the cruel one? No, I needn’t. Every time I read the words ‘Baldr the Good’ in a book, I’m overwhelmed by the desire to blatantly deface the page.”

“Heaven forfend!” Loki mimicked his friend’s voice perfectly.

“Rupert loves books, perhaps even more than I do,” he told Tony.

“They have, in actuality, saved my life on many occasions,” their guest said solemnly.

“Yes,” Tony laughed, “’Cause that time in the Sunnydale High Library…”

Rupert gave him a smile that was half rueful, half gentle.

“He never knew you were real, Rupert,” Loki explained. “So many things are real—in some way or another--that are thought to be imaginary.” His thoughtful expression gave way to a small coughing fit, then a little discrete nose-blowing. “Pardon me, please, I may also be catching a cold, Tony thinks.”

He smiled at his old friend. “Tony thinks nearly as loudly as Thor, by the way.”

“And how do I think?” Rupert returned the smile, though more with his pale eyes than with his lips.

“Like the subtle purring of a tiger,” Loki answered.

The kind of silence fell that happens in a room containing two powerful mages and a one confused engineer—the engineer in question wanting to ask all sorts of questions about demon summoning and vampire slaying, but not wanting to come across as an idiot or an asshole, any more than he’d gotten up the nerve to ask Loki if he’d really given birth to an eight-legged horse at some point in his history. His thirst for knowledge had been known to lead him into trouble in the past.

Loki’s chin jerked up suddenly. He stared very hard at the door just before someone gave a brisk knock.

“Teatime!” Tony exclaimed and leaped to his feet, thanking the gods of room service for breaking the silence, and totally missing the meaning of Loki’s expression. He only noticed that that particular expression had changed to one of absolute shock and terror after he’d already opened the door.

It certainly wasn’t the tea arriving, but at first glance there didn’t seem much there to get bent out of shape about, either--only a tall, thin man in a long dark coat with the collar turned up, and a short, trim man (shorter than Tony, anyway) with a slightly cranky expression.

“Can I help you?” Tony asked.

Rupert, he noticed, had climbed to his feet, as if despite his general scholarly air, heads would shortly roll if there was any trouble brewing.

"Mycroft told us to come here," the shorter man said. "Only, because he's a total prat, he told us to say, 'The Minister sent us.' Hopefully that makes some sort of sense?"

The tall man stared at Tony, sneering slightly. Or maybe he wasn’t sneering. Maybe he just had resting sneer face. He certainly had an air of being fairly impressed with himself at all times.

Well, Tony knew how that was. How did the saying go? It takes one to know one?

He wondered suddenly what strangers saw when they looked at him—billionaire, genius, (former) playboy, philanthropist or world-class asshole?

“He makes words swirl round your head, belovéd,” Loki murmured. “Many words, and they describe you well, but without kindness, just as the words you use for yourself are unkind.”

The short man—who gave off a definite military kind of vibe--raised a hand as if trying to hold back some sort of aggressive situation. “No one needs to get upset. My friend’s just here to talk to his dad. No one wants any trouble.”

“We offer no trouble,” Loki said softly, though his voice carried, as usual. His vibe, by contrast, was definitely Sorcerers R Us, like a single, very high note played on an electric guitar, reverb cranked to the max, magic, magic everywhere.

“However, my dear son, if you have come to speak to your much-loved father, you must know he has long since gone on to the Island of Apples.” He sounded so sad, and so kind, it was heartbreaking.

“Avalon,” Rupert clarified, for those who hadn’t flunked Folklore 101.

Tony did a mental scramble for what he knew about an Avalon that wasn’t either a car or a song by Roxy Music. Or a song by Roxy Music advertising a car. There wasn’t a lot there. Maybe something vaguely King Arthurish?

“The Queens of Ancient Days carried him long since to the Island of the Ever-Young,” Loki continued, as if that clarified anything for anyone.

“He’s dead!” Tony blurted.

“Not exactly,” Loki and Rupert responded in unison.

Rupert’s eyes shone with an unholy forest-green light.

Loki just looked as otherworldly as it was possible for a person sitting on a green damask couch at the London Savoy Hotel to look, the way he did sometimes--usually when he thought no one was looking--all knife-edged cheekbones and vivid green eyes, his skin giving off a faint glow of moonlight.

“Perhaps the Minister has told you much…” Loki looked down. His fingers were twisting up in his lap yet again. “I am Loki, of Asgard, or Jötunnheim, or… Or nowhere. Nowhere, truly, my son. I regret I have no better lineage to impart to you, and no better news.”

“Of Midgard,” Tony said firmly, and crossed the room to plunk himself down firmly by Loki’s side, taking those unhappy hands into his own. “You’re Loki of Midgard, babe.

"And you are?” he asked the new arrivals.

“He—the tall one--is younger fostered-brother to the Minister, which was not at all my intent when I chose a family for his nurture. He is also my son, to whom, at birth, I gave the name Sigvarðr. The small one is my son's guardian, as Martha is his guardian. He is not large, yet he is valiant.”

“I’m John Watson,” the short man said, not seeming to take too much offense at being called “the small one.” Maybe he was used to it. And really, pretty much anyone who wasn’t actually employed as a pro basketball player was going to be a “small one” to Loki.

“I don’t know about guardians,” he went on, “But this is my friend, Sherlock Holmes.”

Rupert pulled the slipper chair away from the desk and moved it close, as well as one of the chairs from the table.

“Why don’t we all sit?” he said, his deep, posh voice making it sound like slightly more than a suggestion. “And, do please forgive my asking, Mr. Holmes, but aren’t you meant to be dead? I thought you’d… er… fallen off a building some time past.”

“He would have the healing factor I have since lost,” Loki said wearily. “Unless it was an extremely tall building, he would swiftly heal.”

“It was a trick,” Holmes said, flinging off his long coat with a dramatic swirl that reminded Tony of something a magician might do with his cape. He clearly shared Loki’s love of really good shirts—his was purple, and had the same tight fit his parent favored.

“A bit of misdirection.” His voice was also deep and, if anything, out-poshed even Rupert’s and Loki’s. Naturally, he took the comfy chair, sprawling in a way that was certainly Lokiesque—Loki when he was happy and confident, anyway, rather than completely miserable and closed in on himself.

Tony hated to see him that way. Hated it.

“In the parlance of the _Jötunn_ people, who are two-sexed, I would be termed your dam,” Loki said, in a voice as flat and sad as Tony had ever heard from him. He sat up painfully straight, every muscle screaming tension. “Look at me if you like, my son, as is your way. Let your words of description appear around me. Do you see that I am truthful? Do you see what I am?”

Holmes’s eyes narrowed, and the irises flicked back and forth as if they really were reading something. As eyes went, they were brilliant and a little hard, like the pale blue-green type of tourmaline. Except for his height and his longish, loosely-curly dark hair, Tony couldn’t see any resemblance to his parent whatsoever.

“You are the fourth son I have borne, Sherlock-who-was-Sigvarðr,” Loki continued softly, pausing for an extended cough attack before he went on. “The first of Midgard. Your elder brothers, Narfi and Vali, were slain as children by the king of Asgard, my sometime-father. Your brother Sleipnir lives in slavery, also by Odin’s doing. I dwelt in great happiness here with your father, Myrddin, who is also called Merlin in the legends of your people. When he... traveled into the west and I was summoned again to the Realm Eternal, I sought haven for you with a family of Midgard. I would not have you taken. I would not see you a victim of that monstrous ruler’s hate.

“And lately," Loki went on, "Have I borne three others, two boys and a girl, like my first two, conceived by my elder brother’s violence. I carry another boy quick within me, conceived in love with my betrothed Anthony, as you were conceived in love with my dearest Myrddin.”

He stood up suddenly, dead-white and shaking. “Tony, I must…” He gave Tony a look of pure desperation before rushing to the bedroom, the door slamming behind him.

Tony glanced around at his guests: Rupert had the expression of a good friend who already knew some of this shit, felt really sad about it and was also worried; John Watson looked perplexed; Holmes seemed both furious and offended.

“This is ludicrous,” he spat. “I am not adopted. Pathetic as my family may be, they are my family. This is…” His jaw audibly clicked shut.

“Of course they are,” Tony said. He honestly felt sorry for the guy. “They fed you, clothed you, saw you were educated and entertained, were decent to you, right? So, they’re your family. And maybe they should have told you about your situation, but maybe they had reasons they didn’t. Believe me when I say, that while your grandfather is a legendary figure, he sure as hell isn’t Santa Claus. Loki was right to try to hide you. I swear, whatever you’re getting ready to feel resentful of or bitter about, it’s nothing to what Loki went through in Asgard, nothing to the kind of shit your dear old Grandpa Odin gets up to when he’s pissed. I want to check on Loki now. Rupert, do you know the deal about Sherlock’s big brothers? Would you enlighten these gentlemen as to why Loki might have been concerned?”

“Yes, I'm able to do that,” Rupert answered and, again, there was something dark and a little bit dangerous in his voice.

Despite what he’d said, Tony couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for posh, supercilious, center-of-his-own-universe Sherlock. Just wait until someone told the poor guy he was a quarter demon, a quarter frost-giant, possibly a quarter Ӕs and only the remaining little bit human. Somebody was going to need to sign up for his very own _Societatum Aeternum_ seal pretty soon. He couldn’t imagine how that would feel, to think you were one thing and find out you were something else completely. Loki was living proof of how that kind of thing could mess with your head.

“But it’s _mental_ ,” Tony heard Watson saying, as he shut the bedroom door.

Tony expected to find Loki in the bathroom, having his several-times-daily appointment with the whenever-the-hell-it-felt-like-hitting-him sickness, but he lay on the bed instead, shaking so hard by this time it looked like the damn mattress had been equipped with Magic Fingers, a pillow shoved against his face so no one would hear him make a sound.

“Lok. Sweetheart.” Tony slid across the bed to take Loki in his arms, pulling him as close as he could.

Loki abandoned the pillow, turning to press his face against Tony’s chest. His breathing was raspy, way too fast. He was saying something, words Tony couldn’t make out, but the desperate sadness was pretty hard to miss—as were the symptoms of a full-on panic attack.

“First off, babe, try just to breathe. Just try. Slow it down. You can do it. Ssh. You can.”

Loki pulled away, sitting cross-legged at the center of the bed. Tony scooted up next to him, gently massaging his shoulders from behind. He felt unusually warm, but maybe that was just from all that unrestrained emotion.

“You did the best you could, Lok. You did your best with all your kids. None of us can control everything in the universe, and it’s not your fault that yours was pure hell sometimes. Think what a sweet childhood you gave your little boys—the lives they got weren’t long, but they were good. And our kids now—you know they couldn’t be better off. Even sad as you feel about what happened to Fen, you’ve got to know he’s the happiest little boy in the world—you know he is, babe. And your son out there, okay maybe he’s a little bit of a dick, but he seems super smart, and he has a best friend who cares enough about him to keep him company for a meeting like this. That’s not so bad, right?”

Though Loki continued to be a little shaky, his breathing slowly returned to normal. Tony watched him pull himself back together, first the impeccable posture, then the air of slightly-above-it-all calm— totally ruined when he let loose with about ten explosive sneezes in a row.

“Oh, gods, I am disgusting!” he exclaimed. “I had no warning whatsoever.”

Tony passed him the box of tissues from the nightstand, noticing that Loki didn’t reach with his left hand, which was closest, but twisted to take them with his right. “What’s up with your arm, Lok?”

“I know not.” Having finished mopping himself off, Loki headed into the bathroom, awkwardly stripping off his sweater as he went. “It has been stiff and somewhat sore since morning. It is... When the false steward injured me, might he have made me ill, Tony? The soreness radiates from the spot of that slight hurt, making it instead great indeed.”

He started scrubbing his hands briskly at the sink. “Would you fetch me a clean shirt, belovéd? Something soft, please? The color matters…” He broke off for another epic sneezing fit, followed immediately by an equally epic cough attack. “Matters not,” he gasped when it finally ended. “Oh, Tony, I feel strange.”

“Have you ever been… uh… ill before, babe? I don’t mean injured, or that pneumonia you picked up from being treated like crap at S.H.I.E.L.D.? I mean like a cold, or something you came down with?”

“I had an itching sickness whilst they held me at S.H.I.E.L.D. I suspect I was given it deliberately, as I was tested in their laboratories. The minions laughed, because it is most often a mild illness of younglings, but for me it was most unpleasant. My skin burned and my head throbbed, and I was sick again and again, and yet the minions insisted that I perform the duties required of me, and now the minister will do the same, and I do not feel well.”

Loki's voice had been steadily rising, until the force of it sent him back into another violent coughing fit.

“Oh, gods, I feel sick.” He gave Tony’s shoulder a staggering push, with probably way more muscle behind it than he intended, because Tony flew back all the way to the bed.

“Leave me,” he choked out. “Leave me, please.”

The door slammed shut between them.

 _Well, shit_ , Tony thought, worried rather than offended. It was time to get rid of their suiteful of people. Loki didn’t need a minute more of this. God, poor Loki. What if he was right about the steward? Anything could have been introduced into his bloodstream, and though it hadn't been an issue before, chances were he had no immunity to whatever it might be.

Tony slid back into the sitting room, where Holmes was looking sour, Watson perplexed and Rupert unreadable.

“Enjoyable as it’s been, gentlemen," he said, "I’m afraid we’re going to have to call it an afternoon. Loki’s a little under the weather."

“Is there anything I can help with?” Rupert got to his feet immediately.

“Nah, I think he just has a bad cold and could use some extra rest. He’s had a rough year and his immune system’s shot to hell. But thanks.”

Tony met Rupert’s eyes. “You’re a good friend to him.”

Rupert gave a curt little nod, obviously shy of compliments.

“You, Sherlock…”

The younger man looked down his nose at Tony. “I’ll have you know, I accept none of this. Even as a child, I never did believe in fairy stories.”

“Did you need someone to take a look at your… um… at Loki?” Watson asked. “I happen to be a doctor, actually.”

“And you can be open-minded?”

“As much as the next man, I suppose. How open-minded did you need?”

“I guess open-minded enough to believe at least part of what you’ve heard this afternoon. And do you think you could get your friend to quit glowering at me? I’m not part of a giant conspiracy to ruin his life. Really.”

Holmes muttered something under his breath that definitely involved the words, “insanity in the family.”

“Don’t mind Sherlock,” Watson said cheerfully, “He’s a high functioning sociopath. It’s always about him.” He stuck out his hand. “Call me John.”

Tony shook with him. John's small hand was rough, warm, and unexpectedly strong. He found himself trusting the guy almost without question.

“Thanks, John," he said in return. "Call me Tony. And welcome to our strange new world.”


	5. Storytime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SickLoki loses his voice (and some language skills) and has objections to being treated by John, though John soon overcomes them, as does Mary, John's wife. Tony, Sherlock and Rupert fail to bond. In the morning, after breakfast, they all head to Wales. Rupert, at Loki's request, tells a story on the way that sheds some light on their mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Martha Hudson, Mycroft Holmes (and Anthea) are intended to be the characters portrayed in the wonderfully addictive BBC Sherlock. If you're not familiar with the series, feel free to substitute the Holmes of your choice, only amplify his essential brattiness to the power of 10. I'll leave it up to the reader whether Tony's assessments of Sherlock's character are correct.
> 
> Tom Waits is a rock/blues/jazz singer-performance artist known for his remarkably raspy voice and portrayals of the seedier side of American life.
> 
> The small, bad man with wicked eyes Loki sees is of course the deliciously evil Jim  
> Moriarty, Sherlock's nemesis, who told Sherlock he would buuurrrnnn.
> 
> John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, wrote the original rulebook for the sport of boxing, emphasizing fair and gentlemanly behavior.
> 
>  _A fyddant yn wir yn def ro os nad ydym yn eu hatal? Yr af gyda chi, f rind annwyl, ac yn gweithredu fel eich llaw dde cryf?_ =Will they really wake up if we do not stop them? Shall I go with you, dear friend, and act as your strong right hand?
> 
>  _A fyddech chi?_ =Would you?
> 
>  _Rwy'n teimlo mor wan, ac yn y blaen amharod_ =I feel so weak, and so unwilling.
> 
> Ogham (pronounced Och'um) is also known as the "Tree Language." 
> 
> "Have fun storming the castle, boys!" is from _The Princess Bride._
> 
> The basic plot of Rupert's story is retold from _The Welsh Book of Fairy Tales_ by W. Jenkyn Thomas. The words are mine, with one or two changes (mainly the change of scene from Snowdonian Park section of Northern Wales to the Brecon Beacons in the south) for my own nefarious purposes. The Brecon Beacons are a range of not-particularly-high mountain (unless you're climbing them). That part of Wales is castle central, closer to the extremely Arthurian area of Cornwall, as well as having lots of Arthurian associations of its own. I've also lived briefly and hiked extensively in the area, while my knowledge of Snowdonia is limited at best, hence the change of place.
> 
> In the context of Rupert's story, a "navigator" isn't a sailor but a manual laborer, a usage that (barely) hangs on today in the phrase "working like a navvy," or in The Pogues song  
> "Navigator," (from _Rum, Sodomy and the Lash_ )about the Irishmen who lived (and often died) building the TransAmerican railways.
> 
> Swear to the gods, there's too much stuff in my head. ;)

“Tony, it occurs…” Loki rasped, eyes widening with alarm at the ugliness of his own voice. His hand went to his throat, lingering there as if expecting to feel something completely different from its usual smooth, slender column. He cleared it painfully and tried again. “Please tell me I did not overwhelm you with my earlier violence?”

Tony took a seat beside him on the edge of the bed, watching his fiancé’s profile as Loki stared at his own bare feet, his toes curling repeatedly into the carpet—a sure sign of distress.

The throat-clearing had done zero good, so far as Tony could hear. Loki didn’t sound so much congested as he did purely raw inside, like he’d spent the past twenty-four hours in a smoky dive bar, swilling bourbon and singin’ the blues. When he paused to cough into a wad of Kleenex, Tony winced.

Despite a certain mischief-god’s expertise at hiding what he felt, each cough—even each breath—clearly hurt like hell.

“Such was far from my intention,” Loki went on, in his Tom-Waits-special voice. “Remorse overcomes me to think that I so rudely pushed, and might have injured you. It was not in any way intended, Tony. Truly, it was not. I only thought of being private for a moment, so as not to cause disgust.”

“Jesus, babe, you didn’t hurt me at all, and you don’t disgust me. Ever.” Tony bumped his shoulder gently against Loki’s arm. “So don’t stress about it, okay? No harm done. Actually, your aim was perfect--I bounced right off the bed.”

Loki shuddered at the bump, a soft little gasp of pain escaping him. “Oh, Tony…” he not-quite-whimpered—because Loki never whimpered, not at anything, however painful--as his right hand flew up to clutch at his left bicep. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath again, and his body started into a series of head-to-toe shivers, counterpoint to the ragged bouts of coughing. He looked just as slumpy and drained as it was possible for him to look, with his skin not even its normal ethereally pale, more like washed-out zombie-gray.

“God, I’m sorry you’re feeling so crappy, sweetheart.” Tony wished like hell he could wave a magic wand, or build a Good Health Machine, or something, anything to bring Loki back to life again. He had to settle for wrapping an arm around his fiancé’s shoulders, pulling him close in hopes of sharing some kind of warmth or strength. “I fully admit I’m not always aces at dealing with the bodily fluid kind of stuff, but all I feel for you is love and concern. Speaking of which…”

“No!” Loki jerked away so hard he nearly tumbled off the bed. Tony grabbed his shirt, barely preventing a high-velocity face-plant on the floor, and ended up with a boneless god of mischief draped across his lap, muttering into the duvet. “No, I will not. I will not.”

“No, what, Lok? You haven’t even heard what I was going to suggest. And before we discuss anything, my beautiful godlike ragdoll, I think we need to get you into bed for real before you flop onto the carpet and do yourself an injury. The odds of my being able to pick you up on my own aren’t that great, as you’ll recall.”

“Rupert might pick me up. He is a tall and powerful man.” Loki patted Tony’s knee clumsily. “Though you also are powerful, best-loved, for one of your size.”

“Well, thanks for that. I guess.” Tony slid out carefully, making sure Loki was situated well on the mattress. “You’re not going to be comfy in your trousers, so…” He paused to let the latest coughing fit pass. “What’s it gonna be, pj’s or sweats? This may be the one time in your life I don’t have an ulterior motive for trying to get you out of your pants.”

If Tony’d thought he was going to lighten the mood, he failed miserably. Loki didn’t even crack a grin, he just turned his face back into the duvet.

“Leave me as I am, please,” he moaned into its folds—obviously trying very hard not to moan at all, but to keep his voice as near normal as it was going to get.

“Babe, you’re not going to be comfortable resting in your clothes. You know that. Take a minute, change, I’ll tuck you in and you can go right to sleep, okay?”

“Tony, I know not if I can stand,” Loki confessed, still muffled in covers, almost too softly for him to hear. “Only for this moment. Soon, I shall be able. Soon…”

“That’s not so good, Lok. You kinda seem like you’re getting worse by the second. Tell me if I’m right.”

“Only a moment, I shall be well. And so, find the garment, if you must. The tracksuit trousers, please. I shall change.”

“At least let John…”

“No!” Loki bolted upright, shaking so hard he looked like he was having a Lokiquake. “No more! A mortal shall not look at me!”

“You let Hank look at you all the time. He’s a mortal.”

“Hank is above seven feet in height and has a pelt of lush blue fur, there is nothing in me that repels him, not even my…” Loki wrapped one arm around his belly, the other hand moved through the air in a gesture Tony knew only too well—it was what he thought of as Loki’s “freak like me.” hand signal.

“To Hank I am only different,” Loki continued. He swayed as he sat, lids sliding downward over eyes that looked like that were trying their hardest to roll back in his head, even as Loki fought to stay upright and conscious. “As all his mutants… No, patients. I mean patients. They… We... Are strange… Different from one another. I am not… monstrous to Hank. An ordinary mortal will find me so, Tony.”

Loki’s voice began to rise. It sounded like anger, but Tony knew it was really panic. “Tony, please, belovéd, they told me I was, over and over again, and I cannot… Cannot… I will not, be freakish and monstrous and what they make of me… Oh!”

Tony knew that sound. He grabbed the bedside wastebasket, but nothing followed but an extended, violent session of dry heaving, interspersed with brutal cough-attacks.

 _Who told you that you were monstrous, Lok?_ Tony wondered. _The good folks of Assholegard? S.H.I.E.L.D.? The evil voices inside your own head?_

He held his fiancé until Loki went totally limp and crumpled back on the bed, beyond completely wiped out, his eyes watering, lungs struggling for air.

“Cannot. Cannot,” he still protested, though without the least bit of strength behind it. Then, softer than ever, “Tony, I fear… The false steward has injured me truly.”

For Loki to admit such a thing… Tony felt like his heart stopped beating.

A soft knock came at the bedroom door. “It’s only John. May I come in?” He didn’t actually wait for an answer, just opened up and stepped on through. “I bullied Sherlock into ringing his brother, to see if he wouldn’t delay your departure by a few days or so. There’s no telling, where Mycroft’s involved, but we can hope, right? Oh, and my wife’s bringing by some supplies from the clinic where we work. We’ll do a little impromptu exam and then, with luck, get you feeling better.”

John sat down on the bed beside Loki, giving the god’s shoulder a pat with his small, broad hand. “You needn’t worry, you know. I’m quite a boring chap, and it doesn’t bother me at all that you’re a bit off the beaten track, as far as patients go. I may have questions, here or there, but they won’t be meant rudely.”

“You see?” Tony rubbed Loki’s back gently. “Nothing to worry about here. No one’s gonna judge or belittle you, babe, just help you feel less like death on a plate. I can’t leave you like this, not if there’s anything I can do to help. Hela would totally rip me a new one and I’d have to hide down in the workshop for weeks with my tail between my legs.”

“You have not a tail,” Loki said groggily. “Kurt has a tail. If you had a tail, it would be a wolf’s tail, as Fen’s tail is, only deep brown as your hair. Would you color it also, to hide where the gray comes in?”

Worried as he was, Tony couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, probably, Lok. And thanks for sharing that little piece of information.” To John he said, “Loki’s had a pretty rough year. He was in a bad… uh… crash about a year ago, right around the time the triplets were born, and he had a brutal experience with the birth, too. Though he’s usually quite the stoic, his brother says he has a history of rough pregnancies, and now whatever this is…”

“Today has been difficult day for you as well, with one thing and another, hmm, Loki?” John asked. He had a kind face, a little more worn than might be expected for a man his age—Tony guesstimated the doctor to be about ten years younger than himself.

He’d have bet a million dollars, too, that John had been in the military at one time, probably for the long haul. There was something in the way he moved and carried himself that reminded Tony of Rhodey, or Cap, an underlying layer of toughness, an alertness, as if there wasn’t too much that would find him off his guard and unready for action.

Damn, he missed Rhodey, the dear, old friend who’d categorically refused to be his best man. He also missed the warm, uncomplicated, brotherly friendship he’d had with Bruce, who likewise would not stand up with him to celebrate his marriage. Happy, on the other hand, had been proud to be asked to be a groomsman.

In a weird fit of he-didn’t-know-what, Tony had ended up asking Logan to take on best man duties--partly because Loki had nudged him in that direction, partly as a passive-aggressive “fuck you” to Rhodey and Bruce, but mostly because he hadn’t failed to notice that the short, surly, deadly Canadian was there every time they needed him, that he always had their backs, without fail, and that wasn’t something Tony took lightly these days.

Logan, who could literally sniff out good and evil, was sweet as hell to Loki, too—in a weird way, almost fatherly, acting as the sort of dad Loki had always needed, firm and fair, quick with his approval. Loki loved him unequivocally, and that made Tony (even if it felt a little strange, considering Logan also scared the fuck out of him), kind of love him too.

He’d gone ahead and asked Pepper to stand up with him, as well, even if she was his ex-lover, and a woman to boot. On the same back-having principle, who could be better? By every measurement that mattered, and despite all they’d been through, all he’d put her through, she never failed to be perfectly loving to Loki, like a big sister, and a true friend to him, always, through and through.

Others might scoff, if he was ever so crazy as to admit the truth (which he never would), and he’d probably earned it, being as he was, but Tony thought maybe Bruce and Rhodey had broken his heart a little bit.

Loki, of course, would have his beloved Kurt, who fit the definition of best man any way you looked at it--a guy so purely good he’d go down in history as having totally subdued the infamous Doctor Doom with his superpower of sympathetic listening. Loki’s brother, Thor, would be with him too, the two of them closer now than at any time in their long lives, and to round out the pack, Supervisor Jorge, a gentle giant of a man who seemed to regard Loki as something of a very tall needy child lost among the others at his Club of Boys and Girls.

Tony hadn’t missed the irony in the fact that Rhodey, Bruce and the rest of his team (only Cap and Natasha said they would come to the wedding, Cap because he was a gentleman of the old school, Nat because she’d no doubt been browbeaten into it by her girlfriend, Pep) had chosen to punish them by giving the icily cold shoulder to their union, when all it had taken in Loki’s life to make him over into a “good” person--by anyone’s standards--was a decent amount of care and attention, being loved and having others to love in return, being treated as if he had value in the world.

He’d been so damaged, so unspeakably hurt, he really was like a kid, sometimes, needing so badly to be fed the affection he’d been starved of for most of his days. Tony supposed he himself wasn’t really that much different, if to a lesser extent. Maybe he showed it in different ways, but he couldn’t deny Loki and the children, with their constant, joyful love, made him feel alive in a way he’d never been.

The desertions hurt, but he could deal with them, he guessed. It just didn’t make the hurting any less.

He’d have liked his judgmental friends and teammates to wake up, only once, in the middle of the night, to the sound of Loki’s screams or sobs, all the shit inside him that he held in viciously tight by daylight, when he was awake, running ferociously rampant through his dreams.

Sometimes it was Odin Loki feared, sometimes the serpent’s venom burning away his eyes, or five-year-olds Narfi and Vali torn to pieces as he watched, magically bound, powerless to do a single thing. Better than half the time, though, it was Thanos and The Other who tormented him in their hot, dark corridors of pain, Loki feeling the control of his own mind ripped away until he was nothing but their unwilling slave, struggling in the prison cell of his own body, the arrows of their cruel, alien thoughts stabbing into his brain.

Those terrors were so present, so concrete, Tony never could comfort them away, not with all the hugs and soft words he had in his power to give. His own awful dreams of Afghanistan, or being trapped in the Chitauri hell with the portal spiraling shut, had eased hugely over the last year. Maybe Loki had charted his mind so well he knew just how to soothe him, or maybe it was those slim, powerful arms around him when he slept, making him feel safe, anchored in his good, real existence. Loki’s night terrors, though, seemed never-ending--he couldn't fix them, no matter how much he might want to.

Bruce had been so dismissive, so contemptuous, about the “bag of cats,” as if being at war with your mind was a matter of disgust, not a chance for caring.

Bruce, whose mind had been shattered to the point he turned into a huge green monster when his temper ran amuck.

Kurt would probably say, kindly, that Bruce’s pain was so immense he didn’t have room for anyone else’s suffering in his head—but Tony didn’t have it in him to be as nice as Kurt, and much as he loved his ScienceBro, he sometimes felt equally pissed at him.

Tony rubbed his eyes, suddenly so fatigued he wished he could just lie down beside Loki on the bed and hold him tightly enough to hold all the darkness away.

“Loki, are you up to date on your immunizations?” John was asking. Tony snapped out of his daze. The doctor was peering into Loki’s mouth with the help of the light from his cellphone.

Loki gazed at him in groggy confusion. “I know not…?”

“Remember when the kids started having their shots, Lok, but you thought…? We thought… We both thought. Loki used to have this crazy strong immune system, John, and we knew it was damaged, we just didn’t know it was _gone_ gone. Plus, Hank wasn’t even sure that the shots would work on him, or be safe. He has kind of an crazy array of allergies.”

“To fend off the Midgardian diseases of childhood. Yes.” Loki’s eyes drifted shut. “I am bitterly cold, Tony, and all my bones hurt me. Each and every one. Tell Wilhelm… Tell… Talk… Send something… It is so quiet, and I cannot feel…"

John pressed a hand to Loki’s forehead. “In the absence of an actual thermometer, here I am using the tried-and-true method enjoyed by mums everywhere. Well, I’d say you’re a few degrees warmer than toast. Can you open your eyes, Loki, and look at me? Only a little?”

“All on fire,” Loki murmured. “Oh, the wicked eyes… What was the small bad man thinking? Burn my son, why?”

“Don’t worry about that man you’re seeing, Loki,” John answered. His voice remained perfectly calm, but the muscles in his jaw had gone tight. His eyes looked wary, and older. “He’s thoroughly dead and will never hurt anyone again.  What’s your normal body temperature like? On the low side?”

“It’s always at least ten degrees Fahrenheit lower than Midgardian—uh, human--normal--unless he consciously raises it.” Tony said. “Which, yes, he can do. Otherwise, he’s cool as a cucumber.”

“Nice trick,” John commented. “Loki, Tony and I are going to turn you onto your back. Remember, I’m not here to judge anything, just to help, so try to relax, no worries, right mate?”

He moved around to the far side of the bed, signaling Tony to stay where he was—but when John touched Loki’s shoulder, he let out a gasp of absolute agony, curling in on himself as if trying to guard it.

“Well, that’s a bit not good,” John commented, and began, slowly and carefully, to roll back the sleeve of Loki’s oversized, formerly-the-property-of-Thor t-shirt. It had _Angry Birds_ characters on it. Thor called them The Birds of Anger.

It wasn’t lost on Tony that the arm in question was the one scratched by the psuedo-steward, aboard his very own StarkJet, and that Loki was right—the bastard absolutely had injured him, and then some.

It was the arm Tony himself had disinfected (supposedly), bandaged and pronounced “all better.” Nothing could be fucking further from the truth. The space between Loki’s shoulder and elbow, normally slender and white and lined with slim but nonetheless perfectly-defined muscle, had been turned into a swollen, oozing, brick-red log of pain. Tony could practically see the heat baking off it.

“More than a bit not good,” John said, and with a visible girding of loins, headed into the bathroom to wash his hands.

As he washed, Tony told him the story of their weird airplane encounter.

“Oh, I knew when I saw him that he was _that_ Loki,” John responded. "Sherlock and I watched the films."

That led to the story of the fall from the Bifrost, Thanos, The Other, and how to stage an invasion just well enough to not make your puppet-masters suspicious, but badly enough that it’s sure not to succeed.

Loki got into the spirit of things by moaning, “I need The Hulk. I beg of you, best-loved, send The Hulk to strike me, else I cannot be free. Please, Tony, I know Bruce holds me in deepest hatred, as all do, but perhaps if you begged the boon of him…?”

“He’s off his nut,” Sherlock said from the doorway. Tony totally hadn’t heard him approach. “Or ought I to say ‘it,’ in this case?”

“What the hell, Sherlock?” Tony felt as if flames were about to shoot out of his eyes.

“Don’t be a twat,” John told his friend mildly, then raised a hand as if directing traffic to stop. “No. Absolutely no. Not another word.”

Sherlock’s jewel-like eyes narrowed. “Who poisoned him?” He strolled over to the bed, peeked at Loki’s arm with a pocket magnifier, then snapped it shut. “What happened?”

John relayed the tale of the fake steward yet again, while Sherlock stood tapping the magnifier against his lower lip. “And so he claimed the attack was retribution for my… parent’s misdeeds?” He said the word “parent” about as acidly as it could possibly be spoken. At least he seemed to have accepted Loki’s story of his origins as the truth, however bitterly.

At which point, Rupert appeared behind him, looking like he was getting ready to do the Sherlock smackdown in the most civilized, British, and yet painful manner possible—as if he might well rearrange the younger man’s unconventionally handsome face, but it would be by Marquess of Queensberry rules.

“Sherlock,” the curator and (apparently) Watcher said, in a tone that made Tony totally understand why Loki said his mental voice, “purred like a tiger.” He rested one large, elegant hand on the detective’s shoulder, in a way that looked fatherly and companionable, but probably felt pretty much the opposite.

“I suspect that was not actually the case,” Sherlock carried on, “Merely a convenient cover for the true motive—a motive that has no connection whatsoever to the perpetrator, who I surmise was, in this case, only a hired agent.”

Tony stared at him. “Say what?”

John gave a quiet chuckle. “It’s what he does. I continue to find it fairly amazing. Most people think he should be punched in the face.”

“Can’t think why,” Tony muttered.

“What are those blue patches? There. And there.” Sherlock indicated the spots in question, two uneven squarish shapes on Loki’s swollen arm, each the size of Tony’s palm. About a third of each patch was _that_ blue, _Jötunn_ -blue, the remaining two-thirds an ugly bruise-purple. It might have been an optical illusion, but it almost looked as if the bruise color crept over the other, nibbling away at the sky blue.

“Damned if I know,” John said, frowning as he gave one of the bruises a gentle touch. “It feels… Almost squashy. What in hell…?”

Someone knocked on the outer door and Rupert left off being subtly threatening to answer it, returning with a short blonde woman in a nurse’s smock. A well-filled backpack hung off her shoulder.

“Hullo, husband mine,” she said cheerfully to John. “Hullo, Sherlock. How’s the patient…? Oh, poor thing! What’s happened?”

“Today I discovered that I am the offspring of a two-sexed alien godling and the wizard of Camelot, who apparently is in an indeterminate state of deadness.” Sherlock proclaimed, definitely in an advanced state of snit. “I am told that… being on the bed is my mother.”

“I actually didn’t mean what happened to _you_ , Sherlock.” The woman gazed at him for a moment, biting her lower lip as if trying not to laugh. “Though,” she said at last, “That truly would explain a great deal.”

“My wife, Mary,” John said. “The other introductions can wait. Tony, I assume you have the technology to get Loki’s regular doctor on the line with me? If you’d take care of that, please. Everyone else can leave.”

Apparently, John’s orders included him too, Tony discovered, once he’d returned with his StarkPad, Hank McCoy already on the screen.

John blinked a time or two times at Hank’s large blue face, but otherwise seemed to take it all in stride, falling right into doctor-speak with his transatlantic colleague.

Mrs. John—Mary—conveyed Tony gently out to the sitting room, saying, “We’ll call if we need you,” as she shut the door firmly behind him.

Tony sank down on the couch, reminded himself that he’d given up biting his nails when he was twelve, and listened to Sherlock and Rupert play a game of “My Bollocks Are Bigger than Your Bollocks” in their hoity-toity British voices. In his book, Rupert was clearly winning, on the basis that his tone lacked any trace of petulance, and he had probably, in his life, slain actual demons and vampires, while Sherlock was just as clearly pouting.

After about twenty minutes, Mary’s head popped out. “Do any of you three speak a strange Scandinavian language?”

“I could get Loki’s brother on the line…” Tony began.

“I’m fairly conversant in _Ӕs_ ,” Rupert broke in. Because, of course he was. Why wouldn’t he be?

“Would you come in then, please?”

Tony could dimly hear Loki’s voice, barely coherent, raised in just that same language, sounding lost, frightened and confused, then Rupert’s, answering soothingly, as if telling a comforting story. A few minutes after, the sound of singing followed. It had to be Rupert—the voice was too deep for either John's or Mary's.

Tony wished suddenly that he could be a singer or a musician, that he could soothe Loki that way when the world got too big for him, as it sometimes did.

He also began to wonder if there was anything Rupert did badly. Maybe he had inferior math skills, or something.

After about twenty minutes of this—and blatantly ignoring Tony’s attempts at conversation—Sherlock sprang to his feet, retrieved his coat, announced, “I’m leaving!” and left.

“Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out,” Tony muttered after him. He wasn’t quite clear on all the connotations “being a twat” had to a British person, but he was fairly sure Mr. Sherlock Holmes could cross most of them off the list.

And yet… He did possess a certain Lokiesque quality, which showed up in more than his pale skin, slim build and dark, wavy hair. He definitely had the Loki ‘tude, like Hela did, showing up in sass and style and excellently cut clothes. Unlike Tony’s two favorite people in the world, though, all the charm, sensitivity and vulnerability appeared to have been removed, as if instead of feeling too much, Sherlock felt too little, or as if feelings, besides his own, just didn't matter to him.

Maybe he improved the longer you knew him. Maybe first impressions weren’t everything. Tony had his doubts.

He had to wonder, also, what Sherlock would have been like if Loki, who was always such a loving parent, had been able to raise him. Or Loki and Myrddin together. If he’d been a dark-haired little boy named Sigvarðr, raised by two wondrous, magical men who adored him, and each other, two men who understood perfectly the workings of a peculiar mind.

Tony couldn’t think about that too long. It made him sad, knowing what might have been, and that there was no way Loki would ever get his baby boy back again, any more than he could get back Narfi or Vali. That ship had sailed, like the ship (a literal ship that went on water, or something figurative that Loki couldn’t explain, because his brain mostly worked in metaphors?) that apparently took Myrddin away to Avalon.

Tony still didn’t really know what had happened to Myrddin in the end. He wasn’t dead, Loki and Rupert both said—was it like Frodo going to The Grey Havens at the end of _The Return of the King_ , or an even more nebulous event? “Gone to the Island of Apples” sure didn’t tell him much of anything.

Poor, shattered Loki, losing his baby, losing his love—no wonder Mostly Absent Mom had been worried about her boy. Tony hoped the stress of those past memories wasn’t part of what was dragging his fiancé down in the present. He had a strong desire to cuss out both Sherlock and his adoptive brother, the Minister, for thinking it was A-Okay to treat his Loki like shit, like a puppet to randomly jerk around, here, there and everywhere.

He needed, suddenly, to see what was going on in the bedroom.

Tony rapped softly on the door. “I need to use the loo, if that’s okay?”

“Enter,” John answered quietly. As he sidled in, Mrs. John touched a finger to her lips.

Rupert sat in a chair beside the bed, holding Loki’s slender hand between his two large, strong ones. Loki appeared to be sleeping peacefully, at least. The sleeve of his t-shirt had been snipped off and his arm neatly bandaged.

So as not to be caught in a fib, Tony hit the bathroom to do what he’d supposedly come for, then tip-toed out again.

“How’s my guy?" he whispered. "I haven’t been hearing him.”

John took his arm, steering him back out into the sitting room. His too-worn-for-his-age face looked even more worn, and Tony instantly went cold inside, and a little bit dizzy. “What’s up, John? Sherlock left by the way.”

John sighed and rubbed his face. “That might be for the best. He has a tendency to get stroppy when he’s bored.”

 _He can’t care for Loki, can he?_ Tony wanted to ask, knowing he didn’t need to, really. _He isn’t capable of it. Ever. Not in any meaningful way._

John, who seemed like an unusually loyal person, appeared to read the question in his eyes.

“I’m a friend to him, and he is my friend in return. My best friend. He cares for Mrs. Hudson and even, now, for Mary, in his way. One or two others, also, perhaps. It’s only… His brain is wired so differently. I can’t say if that’s his heritage, his upbringing, or just Sherlock being Sherlock. Sometimes he makes me think of the story of the Snow Queen—do you know it? The boy with the shard of poisonous mirror in his heart, that made him fill up with ice?”

Tony remembered Jarvis telling him that story a long time ago, even though his preference was for stories about race cars, or astronauts, or daring adventures. Pirates featured prominently, as well.

He thought, too, of a young (and ancient) man of his acquaintance, who he’d spy out on the terrace now and then, sky-blue beneath the moonlight when he thought he was alone, trembling with terror because he was the monster who lived in his very own closet, and he feared the ice in his heart.

Loki who didn’t want to hate being a _Jötunn_ , but did. Loki who’d confessed to him, after months, that in a madness of fury and rage and self-disgust, he had killed the father who’d given him that terrifying blood.

He had wanted to please Odin so badly, to prove his faithfulness and love, and he now crucified himself, night and day, for the crime he'd committed.

It never mattered, either, that Tony praised his soft cerulean skin with its delicate ridges, or admired his clear ruby eyes, or ran his fingers lovingly over the curves of his elegant obsidian horns. His flawless, exquisite-in-any-form Loki could hear none of it.

“I’m not going to say anything against your friend,” Tony said. “I’m sure he has his own thing, and who would blame him for being weirded out by what he heard today? I guess I would, too, in his place—though I’ve gotta say my capacity for disbelief has been seriously pummeled in the last three years. Ever since I met Loki, that is.”

“Loki’s not what I expected,” John said. “Neither from the legends, nor the news. All his concern is for you and the baby—and for Sherlock, God help us, liking him--not the least bit for himself. He’s quite dehydrated, and so I’ve put in a drip, given him something to reduce the fever and help control his nausea, treated his arm as best I could. He’s certainly more comfortable, and should be able to get some rest, but Dr. McCoy says I’m not to use anti-virals, which I’d normally be pushing at this point. It looks, more than anything else, like a variant form of measles—I noticed the Koplik’s Spots inside his mouth first thing, which along with the fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes… Measles isn’t a harmless little disease anyway, despite what some people think, especially for someone like Loki, who’s been ill, and weakened, as you told me. This infection is moving through him like a locomotive, as if he hasn’t the least resource to fight it. The arm, in particular, is worrying. He ought to be in hospital, Tony.”

“He can’t. You know that, right, John?”

"Christ." The doctor rubbed at his jaw, his face looking more worn than ever. “Bloody humanity. You’d think just once we could get it right. That a… being’s differences are not an invitation to experiment on him. It makes me remember, somehow, the fact that all the gorgeous birds painted by Audubon were thoroughly killed and dead." His blue eyes darkened, and for a moment traveled somewhere else, maybe back to the war, wherever the war happened to be.

“I’ll take care of him, Tony,” John said at last. “I won’t leave you alone.”

“Would it help if I got you and Mary an adjoining room? And anything else you need, of course.”

The doctor shook his head. “Tony, that’s very generous, but…”

“John, totally not intending, by any means, to brag here, or put you in an awkward position, but I’m a fucking billionaire. Money is literally meaningless to me. Believe me, a room at The Savoy is nothing in comparison to a decent doctor treating my very sick fiancé and not freaking out because he’s a SpaceViking.”

“SpaceViking.” John shook his head, laughing softly. “Well…” he considered. “I’ll see if Mary will pack us a bag, then.”

Tony had vague memories during the night of one or other of the Watsons coming in, stealthy as mice, to take Loki’s temperature or change out his IV bag, but when he woke up once and for all, to full light, Loki wasn’t in the bed.

His explosion of total panic ended abruptly with the opening of the bathroom door, a gust of scented steam, and the emergence of his fiancé, wet-headed and wearing his white Savoy robe.

Coughing, looking more than a little shaky, and moving as if he was ninety years old, Loki began to gather what looked like daytime clothes from the wardrobe.

“Babe,” Tony said, propping himself up on one elbow. “Leave that, I beg of you. Anything you need, I’ll get, okay?”

Loki, who’d visibly jumped when he first spoke—he’d obviously thought Tony was sound asleep--turned and gazed down at him, his eyes dull and murky, like very dark jade, inside their seas of red.

Tony patted the expanse of sheet in front of him. “C’mon and join me, please? How are you feeling?”

Loki slipped off the robe and laid his long, still-slightly-damp, naked self beside him on the bed. “Weary,” he squeaked.

“Ouch, the voice!” Tony said. “Someone has a world-class case of laryngitis.”

“It is ridiculous,” Loki agreed, and laid his head on Tony’s arm, sighing gently as Tony pulled him close, drawing the covers over both of them. He smelled like his hypoallergenic and handmade by monks in New England soap, but like something else too, something not so pleasant, that he couldn’t quite place, even though he knew it was familiar, something smoky and fiery.

“My poor baby. You were so sick last night, and I was so worried. And yet, like the dick I am, I totally fell asleep. Unintentionally, but still…” He brushed back Loki’s damp hair, rubbing gently with his fingertips at the place behind his ear, one of Loki’s pleasure-spots, which nearly always made him purr.

This morning his love only moved restlessly, and the texture of his usually more-than-humanly-soft skin felt strange—covered with flat, ovalish lumps, very similar in texture to Jöri’s scales.

“It burns,” Loki said, in his sad little mouse-voice.

 _Just send_ , Tony told him. _For god’s sake, don’t strain yourself, sweetheart._

Loki looked at him bemusedly with his red, red eyes, as if he knew something was going on, but couldn't detect it.

“I just sent to you, Lok. Didn’t you hear me?”

Loki shook his head, then immediately pressed a palm to his forehead. “Ah, gods, my head, my head!” he squeaked.

“Oh, babe…” Tony kissed his too-warm brow. “I’ll see if John can give you something, okay? The pain’s probably from the fever, don’t you think?”

Loki shook his head again, this time slowly and carefully. “Wake him not, Tony. He has lost enough sleep over me.”

“Is there anything I can get you, then? Pajamas? Tea? Water? A new voice? Is Wilhelm demanding to be fed?”

“I could not possibly take anything,” Loki croaked, in utter disgust, rolling to face the other way. The smoky, burning smell moved with him, stronger than ever, and now that Tony looked he could see the scale-like pattern running down the nape of Loki’s neck, across his shoulders, over his back. Maybe it was the rash part of the measles and Loki just lacked the right pigments in his skin to make it red. He’d have to ask for John’s input on that one.

“I have an idea—why don’t I get your notepad and a pen from your bag, then you can write what you want to say, and not strain your voice?” Tony immediately got up and began to rummage through Loki’s carry-on, locating the steno pad his fiancé used to scribble notes to himself, and one of his fine-tipped drawing pens.

Loki’s hand emerged from beneath the covers to take the writing utensils. He thought a minute and then the pen began flying rapidly over the page, nib scritching quietly, for more than a minute, before Loki ripped out the page and handed it to him.

The green steno paper appeared to have sprouted a small forest of stylized trees.

“Uh, Lok…” Tony squinted at the forest. Loki wrote English flawlessly (something Tony had briefly worried about, needlessly, when his love first came to live in Manhattan) either printing in a perfectly spaced and formed font of the sort that often appears on signs advertising expensive wine tastings, or in gorgeous Spenserian penmanship, like something from an old, important document.

The trees on the steno page weren’t either of those things. The trees looked like fucking Viking runes, which he had no clue how to read.

When Tony pointed that out to him, Loki flipped the notebook open again and began to write a second note, with just a little hint of irritated ungraciousness, as if Tony had complained about sloppy, unreadable penmanship, instead of having a completely foreign alphabet shoved in his face.

Loki wrote much slower on his second attempt, with many pauses, as if having to work strenuously to pull together what he was thinking. The page he handed Tony featured his usual perfect printing, but the words read, _Ég verð að koma fljótlega. Bíllinn verður að koma_.

Tony stared at the note, slightly at a loss for what to do. Loki had worked so hard to form the words, but… SpaceViking? Not exactly an improvement.

Fortunately a soft rap sounded on the door, and Rupert came through, dressed in dark gray boxer shorts and what was almost certainly another Thor Special faded tee. This one said “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.”

Tony handed the older man Loki’s paper.

Rupert’s handsomely-lined face looked sympathetic. “Loki says he needs to get up before long, as a car will be coming soon,” he translated.

Tony felt like steam was going to come out of his ears. “Let me guess--the fucking Minister.”

“This mission of Loki’s must be of a certain importance,” Rupert said thoughtfully.

“Well, he can’t fucking do it. He can’t even hear me send to him, and the first note he handed to me was in fucking runes, Rupert!”

“May I see it?” Rupert asked, his calm more than slightly infuriating in that particular moment. For just a second, Tony hated the Englishman, standing there all rational and self-possessed in his skivvies and Thor’s dumb shirt. He all but slapped Loki’s original note into Rupert’s hand and then stood, glaring, as he perused it, paying no attention to Tony whatsoever, in much the same way the fictional Giles ignored Buffy’s drama-fests on TV.

Rupert spoke to Loki first. “ _A fyddant yn wir yn def ro os nad ydym yn eu hatal? Yr af gyda chi, f rind annwyl, ac yn gweithredu fel eich llaw dde cryf? "_

 _“A fyddech chi_ , Rupert?” Loki answered. Tony guessed (from the quick lesson Loki had given him, and the sounds of the words), that the language was Welsh. “ _Rwy'n teimlo mor wan, ac yn y blaen amharod_.”

“Oh, my dear,” Rupert said, sitting by Loki on the bed and clasping his hand again. “These things do have terrible timing, do they not?”

He turned to Tony. “The first note is not actually written in runes but in Ogham, the inscribed language of the druids. Loki wrote, ‘I feel them stir to their awakening, and I must be there to bind them again.' Apparently time is of the essence. The words of the Minister matter not.

"By the by, I’ve offered to accompany you to Wales.” Rupert gave a wry smile. “In case there are any translation emergencies. My wife will bring by my things in time for us to leave. Did you want to use the loo, Tony, before I shower?”

“Nah, go ahead,” Tony said sourly, glancing at the clock. Eight-fucking-seventeen and already his day had gone to shit. “Loki’s had his. I’ll help him dress while you’re in, then take my turn.”

“Very good,” Rupert answered, which only irritated him more. He sounded like a fucking butler.

Loki hauled himself upright and laid a gentle hand on Tony’s thigh. “I do not mean to anger you, belovéd,” he squeaked out, and Tony felt instantly guilty. He really needed to take control of himself. A pissy attitude would help exactly nothing, and put more of a load on Loki’s already overburdened shoulders.

“Many may perish, I see now, if the task is not accomplished.” Loki’s eyes begged him for understanding. He looked scared, and that scared Tony in turn.

He ran the backs of his fingers over Loki’s hot, dry cheek. “What are we talking about, babe? Why is this your job to accomplish, other than us playing a game of ‘Minister Says'?”

“The game is called 'Simon Says', I am informed.” Loki paused to cough. "Though who Simon is and why obedience is owed him, I know not."

If anything, Loki's cough sounded worse than the day before, and he rested his head briefly on Tony shoulder before continuing. “It is harder to play than one imagines.”

Tony stroked his soft, curling hair, planting a gentle kiss on the top of Loki’s bent head.

“Do not take my words amiss, _hjarta hjarta minn_ ,” Loki went on, “But the task is mine by obligation of inheritance. As Myrddin was my handfasted spouse, and the task left uncompleted by him, it is a thing I must see unto its end. Only then may I marry you, belovéd, unencumbered by the past. In my own defense, I had no idea this obligation awaited. I could not in conscience have accepted your proposal, had I known.”

Loki rested his head on Tony’s shoulder again. “My whole heart, my whole self, belovéd, desires only to be bound to you. Yet still, I would mark out the red, as Natasha Romanova once spoke of to me. I would clean my ledger-book with lives willingly saved to replace those unwillingly taken. I would not have my dearest brother Thor say with shame, ‘He is adopted,’ when speaking of me. I know it is impossible to atone, yet I would attempt it anyway.”

Tony wrapped Loki’s trembling body in his arms. “Gods, babe, you try to carry so much. You try to carry too much. You’ve gotta let some of it go, someday. It’s not good for you.”

“It slays me daily, in increments,” Loki confessed, then said, “A knock is shortly to sound upon the door. Perhaps the wife of Rupert approaches?”

Sure enough, two seconds later someone knocked.

“Rest,” Tony ordered his fiancé. “Please lie down, and don’t move an inch until I return, babe.”

He opened the door to a blonde woman about Sherlock’s age, so petite even Natasha could have looked down on her—but despite her tininess, she had Natasha’s same kickass ball-of-fire look. The blonde hauled in a good-sized suitcase, not bothering with the wheels, as if it was nothing.

“Um… Hi, I’m Elizabeth,” she said, smiling. “Rupert’s wife? So, that’s his traveling bag, scrying glass included, as per request. Are you Tony?”

“Tony Stark.” He stuck out his hand and she shook it. To say Elizabeth had a firm handshake was an understatement.

“God, a friend of mine loves your stuff! Like, adores it!” Her accent was pure Southern California. “The new StarkPad? The one you can see through? She practically c… ongratulates you on your excellent invention. I almost said something rude there. Inexcusable. My bad.”

Tony found himself grinning. “You’re Buffy. You are. Don’t try to deny it!”

She laughed. “God, I haven’t heard that name in ages! Guilty as charged, though. Where’s my hubby? In the shower? This time of day it’s either the shower or tea, and I don’t see any signs of tea.”

“Would you like some?” Tony asked. “Tea, I mean? Or coffee? I’m rapidly thinking coffee might be a necessity. And breakfast. Would you like to join us?” He felt weirdly shy around her, slightly hero-worshippy. At the same time, it was hard to reconcile this mature, bright-eyed, vibrant woman with the young, burnt-out, grieving Buffy of the later TV seasons.

Elizabeth Giles gave him a wry grin. “Okay, for starters, Rupert wasn't, like forty-five when I met him, I don’t have a sister who was a human key, my mom is alive and runs an art gallery in Chelsea and I never had a romance with Spike--because, yuck, he's kind of a douche--though he did actually pick up a soul accidentally.  I think he tripped over it and got stuck. and then he went good… ish. Sometimes he comes over to the flat and he and Rupert watch rugby and yell at the TV. Also, Riley with the potato nose, again, yuck, no. There never was a Triumvirate of Evil, or whatever the fuck, and Tara and Willow are married and own a private girls’ school for young women with high IQ’s and magical ability. We call it Ms. Hogwarts.”

She paused, thinking. “Though you know the actual Hogwarts is real too, right?”

“Color me surprised,” Tony said drily. "You'd think Loki would've told me."

As if summoned by his name, Loki instantly appeared, neat and tidy with his hair in soft waves and wearing one of his attractive green sweaters, black lace-up boots and black jeans. He looked gorgeously ethereal instead of zombified. Tony strongly suspected magic had been put in play during the time he was supposed to be resting.

Loki swanned across the room to Elizabeth, took both her hands, then kissed her cheeks European-style, right followed by left.

Buffy kissed him the same way, saying, “Loki, I’m so glad to finally meet you! Rupert’s told a zillion stories. Your guy saved my hubster’s life at Oxford,” she said to Tony. “Literally. Gave him back his will to live, or something. So, in turn, I guess I owe you my life too, Loki.”

“Rupert has ever been a true friend to me,” Loki told her, in his horrible voice—apparently the magic hadn’t reached that far. “My heart rejoices to meet you as well, Elizabeth, of whom I have heard much fair report.”

“Prince Charming,” Buffy said to him, with a grin. “But, god, your poor voice! Your man is in dire need of tea, Tony.”

“I’m ordering breakfast,” Tony said. “Any requests?”

“You know, the usual,” Buffy answered. “Toasty stuff. As long as coffee appears.”

John and Mary, walking in at that moment, said pretty much the same, only replacing the coffee with tea. So did Rupert, who emerged from the bathroom ready for action, dressed like Loki, in a sweater, boots and jeans that he’d apparently conjured from the æther. He took a seat in the big chair, with Buffy in his lap, leaning against him lovingly.

She had a long, red, puckered scar, Tony noticed, running from just below her left ear to the top of her right collarbone.

While waiting for the food to arrive, Tony excused himself to shower and change, timing his return so perfectly the room service waiter was just knocking on the door.

Everyone fell to hungrily, talking and laughing, except for Loki, who silently sipped apple juice and sculpted his scrambled eggs into interesting shapes.

“You know, babe,” Tony said, “If you can manage to build them up just a little higher, then flatten the top, you’ll have Devil’s Tower, in Wyoming.”

“ _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ ,” Loki said hoarsely and wearily, and ate one small, defiant bite of egg before setting aside his plate. After a few minutes he excused himself to the bedroom.

 _Babe?_ Tony tried sending after him. _Are you okay? Are you feeling sick again?_

What he really, really wanted to ask was, _Why isn’t Baby Wilhelm bugging you for food anymore?_

Except he found himself really too scared to know the answer to that one, and anyway, sending to Loki at that moment was like throwing his thoughts into mud. Loki wasn’t refusing to answer him, he was just too clogged up to hear anything, and too muddled to send in return.

In a bit, Tony took himself off to the bedroom too. At first he thought his fiancé had fallen asleep, lying on his side on the bed, and he moved around the bedroom as silently as he could, packing their things away. After a little while, though, he realized Loki wasn’t asleep at all, but silently weeping.

Tony big-spooned him tenderly, murmuring in his ear, “What is it, babe? What’s hurting you?”

“’Tis nothing,” Loki snuffled, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. “Only that I cannot hear you, or those of our family, and most especially that I cannot hear young Wilhelm, with whom I can converse in no other way. It makes me fearful that somehow I have harmed him, without meaning it. I shall force myself to eat more, for his sake. I shall, though the mere thought of food makes me retch.”

“My poor Loki,” Tony said, rubbing his tummy in gentle circles. “My poor love.”

Loki fell asleep almost instantly with Tony to hold him, and when he finally returned to the others, leaving Loki still groggy in the bed, he received the news that the car would be there in five minutes, and if he had any packing left, he’d better do it quickly.

The aforementioned car turned out to be just short of a limousine, the kind of shiny black vehicle presidents occupy in motorcades, though minus the little flags fluttering on the corners of the hood. It was the big cousin of Tony’s own town car, which Happy took such pride in driving for him, and keeping in immaculate shape.

He wished it was Happy driving them that day, instead of the Minister’s anonymous minion, with a grim mouth and his black cap pulled low over his eyes.

He’d thought the travelers would be just him and Loki, with Rupert as a late addition, but it turned out that, for reasons unknown, the Minister had insisted his brother accompany them, and Sherlock was already seated inside, looking stormy and rebellious. Along with his promise to look after Loki, where Sherlock went, John accompanied, and where John went, Mary came after.

To round out the party, they had the Minister’s very own right-hand woman, a fierce brunette called Anthea (though Loki referred to her as Morgana) to be his eyes and ears.

Luckily they all fit comfortably inside, Loki drowsing in Tony’s arms and a tartan throw-blanket wrapped around him, Sherlock sneering, the rest talking quietly among themselves.

Rupert had given his wife a passionate kiss at the curb and bid her farewell, Buffy calling after them cheerfully, “Have fun storming the castle, boys!”

She was, she’d informed them earlier, permanently retired from the “fighting supernatural evil things business,” except in self-defense.

“And quite rightly, too,” Rupert growled in return, caressing her bright hair.

“I have a normal job and two kids at home,” Buffy put in. “I don’t need the additional scar tissue.”

Rupert watched for ages through the back window after the car pulled away, long after he’d possibly have been able to see her, looking stoic, as if he’d worked a long time to train his face not to look sad when the two of them were separated.

Loki’s eyes opened as they left the city behind. He appeared to be listening intently, his face turning slightly in different directions, like currents of information wafted around, carried on the air—and for all Tony knew, they actually did.

“Rupert,” he said at last, “A story, please?”

“Of what, my prince?” Rupert requested.

Tony couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

“The old tale of Myrddin and Vortigern,” Loki answered, after another period of thought. “As it pertains to the present situation.”

Rupert studied his face for a moment, then began, a perfect storyteller with his deep, musical voice.

This is the story Rupert told...

Vortigern the King called together his wise men and inquired of them what he ought to do.

“Great King,” they said unto him, "Pull away to the vasty wildnesses of your kingdom, and there raise up and defend for yourself a city, for the barbarians you have received as your friends are deceitful, and seek to cast you down through their treachery. Even while you live they will seek to fall like wolves upon your holdings. How much more, then, will your people suffer when you are gone?"

The king was filled with wrath, though he kept his council, and set out amongst his advisers and magicians to find a home for his fortified city. Here and there, over mile after mile, they journeyed, but nowhere found a suitable place until they came at last unto the Beacons, where atop the tallest mountain they discovered a commendable place to raise a fortress.

The advisers told the king, "Sire, construct your city here, for in this place your enemies may not defeat you."

Therefore Vortigern the King sent for draughtsmen, stonecutters and masons, and assembled in that place all the stuffs of building. In the night, however, all disappeared, and by sunrise nothing remained of what he had brought together, not the least pebble lingering there of those good things that he assembled.

A second time materials in great number were brought to the Beacons from all over the kingdom, but again they disappeared in the nighttime, once more without the least trace.

Vortigern waxed wroth, and once more summoned his wise men together, asking of them the cause for this confusion.

The advisers replied: "Sire, find a child within your kingdom born without mortal father, bring about his death by sacrifice according to the Old Ways, and spill his blood onto the cornerstone of your citadel, and likewise onto the ground that surrounds it, or your city of refuge will never stand firm.

Vortigern the King shuddered to think of such a dreadful deed, yet feared what might occur if he did not defend his people, and so he sent his messengers out through the land, in search of the boy born of no mortal man. From place to place they went, from remote village to distant town, searching always in vain, until they reached a field in Bassaleg, where a tangle of boys played at ball.

Two of the boys quarreled bitterly between themselves, and the one spat to his fellow, "Cursed boy with no father, small good will ever come to you."

The second boy, object of his scorn, only gazed, smiling, upon him.

This boy’s hair was raven-black, his skin pale as snow, his eyes crimson, and though the messengers quailed to look upon him, they knew they had found the child they sought.

“Take me then, servants of Vortigern,” this uncanny boy said. “I know in my heart what you have come for, yet I would not detain you here.” And he went with them, meek as any lamb, until they had led him before Vortigern the King.

The king regarded the strange child and felt sore afraid, though he hid the emotion most manfully.

“Again to me on the morrow, boy,” were all the words Vortigern said to him.

When the following day dawned, Vortigern the King, his advisers, warriors and nobles, stonecutters and masons, the dreamers and devisers of cities all gathered together at the place where the cornerstone stood, to watch the spilling of the fatherless boy’s blood, by the rites of the Old Ways.

The boy stood naked upon the appointed stone, the sun blinding upon his white, white skin, the wind rippling his night-dark hair. “O King,” he cried out in a bright, carrying voice, “For what reason have you brought me here?”

"I seek your death, boy with no father,” answered the king, "That this stone and the earth around it, upon which my city will be built, may be nourished by the rites of the Old Ways, and my citadel may stand firm."

"Foolish Monarch," said the boy, "I have indeed a father, who dwells in the Underworld, and will avenge each drop of my precious blood you foolishly spill here. Tell me, O Vortigern, who instructed you to do this thing?"

"My advisers," replied the king, “My magicians. My wise men.”

"Bring them close," returned the boy. When they had come near, the boy questioned the wise men: "Why did you believe this venture would prosper if you spilled my blood in the place, by whatever rite? Who told you to seek me, O foolhardy ones? Speak without guile, by my might I compel you.”

He turned then to Vortigern the king, "Soon I will unfold to you every least thing, but first I would ask your advisers what it is they believe lives beneath the bones of this mountain?”

But the wise men only hung their heads, and muttered amongst themselves and, at last, confessed their ignorance.

“Then summon your navigators and your cutters of stone, and let them delve into the ground, for beneath our feet expands a great cavern, and on its floor a lake of mighty depth, still and clear as a wise man’s thoughts.”

The men skilled in such things dug with haste and force and, looking down, saw all was as the boy said.

"Now," the boy went on, turning to the wise men, "I know it is far for eyes to see, but tell me what lies in the pool?"

The advisers hung their heads again, and again in their shame and wounded pride, said not a word.

"I know well what lies there," said the boy, "If your brilliant men do not. Upon the lake float two fair barges. Each barge bears a vessel, sealed by day and cleverly wrought. But, O my lords all, what do those vessels contain, and what becomes of them, under light of the moon? That, great ones, is the question—do you know?”

Again, the advisers were silent, barring only the grinding of their teeth.

The naked boy sat down upon the stone in tailor-fashion. “Go down the mountain,” he said, “To where two stones stand upright like the fang-teeth of a wolf. Cut us a goodly passage there, worthy diggers, that we may witness these wonders for ourselves.”

This, by the king's command, was done, while the boy sat upon the stone that had been meant to witness his death, singing merrily to himself, and holding discourse with things unseen.

When the cave wall had been breached and all gone within to stand upon the lakeshore, the boy summoned the barges to himself with a lazy wave of his hand, and the king and his advisers saw all was as he said. On the first barge sat a casket of alabaster, intricately carved, on the second a casket carved of red jasper, of equal workmanship.

“How could such puny chests,” scoffed Vortigern the King, “Contain might enough to overthrow the castle of a king?”

The boy fixed upon the ruler his ruby eyes, saying softly to him, “Do you not feel the magic of the earth upon the winds? Do you not know what is small may grow mighty again, and that everything changes under moonlight?” Thus speaking, he stepped lightly aboard the first barge, throwing back the lid of the casket of alabaster.

“ _Ddraig wen_!” he cried, and lifted up into his arms a small wyrm, or dragon, white as his own skin.

Returning the creature to its open chest he stepped across to the second barge, throwing open the casket of red. “ _Ddraig goch!_ ” he called out again, lifting a wyrm of equal size from its slumbers.

“By the magic of this place they sleep, diminished, by day, but by night, grown vast and deadly, they contest mightily for supremacy of the skies, and the whole of earth trembles with their onslaught. Would you still build your stronghold in this place, Vortigern King?”

“I would,” the king answered, in his pride and obstinacy. “And you, boy, to save your own young life, what would you do for me?”

The boy once more regarded the monarch with his ruby eyes, and sighed, and returned the dragon to its chest.

“What you ask of me, Vortigern King," he said. "I will charm them to sleep by both night and day, and long will your towers have fallen ere they rise from their enchanted dreams.”

“It is good, child,” said Vortigern the King, smiling his cold smile. “It is very good.”

“Is it truly?” asked the boy, but he was answered by no one.

For five days and nights, he stood on the lakeshore, alone in darkness, singing. Afterward, the boy returned to the surface, and refreshed himself, and his life was spared by the king.

He became known in time as the greatest of magicians, Myrddin Emrys, or Myrddin Wyllt (and also as Merlin, as the English name him), and some say he was later sealed within the dragons’ cave by the sorceress Nimué, when he was an old man, or possibly by the sorceress Morgana, and others say he lived upon the earth a thousand years. Some say the advisors of Vortigern the King, so useless otherwise, found a way to curse him in revenge for their shaming, so that his life was turned in reverse, and he was an old man when he ought to have been a youth, and a youth in what should have been his dotage.

And others, still, tell that he paces the shores of the Island of Apples, living as any live who dwell therein, awaiting the one he loves, the one who loves him.

Rupert reached across, touching Loki’s hand sympathetically. “My dear friend…” he began.

The familiar mask had dropped down. Loki looked handsome, as usual, and also unwell, but other than that his face was a blank slate, devoid of anything, especially emotion.

“Thank you, Rupert,” he said softly, “For telling the story. I believe I know now what we are seeking, and more precisely where it may be found. It isn’t in Snowdonia Park, in the north, but in South Wales, in the Brecon Beacons.”

“You intend to follow a fairy story?” Sherlock scoffed. “Are you entirely certain you’re not mental… Mum?”

“My other children call me ‘ _Pabbi_ ,’” Loki told him, in the same quiet voice.

It entirely escaped Tony how Loki managed to keep patience with his obnoxious son.

“I had meant to show you…” He pushed a button or two on his StarkPhone and turned it back around. Sherlock maintained his air of bored indifference. John, Mary and Rupert leaned forward eagerly to look. “The snow-haired boy is Jöri, the girl is Hela, and the boy of the brindled hair is Fenrir. My triplets. My bold three, worthy of sagas,” Loki said with fond pride.

“Born... last year?” John looked confused.

“They grew with great rapidity at first, as we were in treacherous times and their skills were needed. That now has slowed and they age at normal rate, as if existing in that space between six and seven years of age. They attend school, as others do, and engage in the pastimes of children.”

“They’re great kids,” Tony chimed in. “I hope you’ll all be able to come to the wedding and meet them personally. I can send the StarkJet for you guys.” He grinned. “I’d have Hela look after you, Sherlock. She may look like a porcelain Victorian princess, but she can do snarky and haughty with best of them. You’ll either love or kill each other.”

“Hela is not haughty!” Loki said, with genuine distress, his mask dropping again, before going into a brutal, extended coughing fit, curled up into himself. “I want not my children to kill one another! It must not happen!”

He went into yet another-cough attack, until there were spots of blood staining the tissues and green swirls of magic curling into the air.

“Darling! Darling!” Mary said, leaning forward to place her hands on Loki’s knees, exerting gentle pressure. “Tony didn’t mean it, love.” She gave him a reproachful look, and it hit Tony like a kick in the teeth what he’d said.

To someone who’d literally seen two of his children kill each other.

Sherlock, bless him, said snootily, “I am not fond of small children, boys or girls, but I am unlikely to kill one, even for experimental purposes.”

John snickered, and Loki, oddly enough, snapped out of his PTSD fugue and was himself again.

“Pardon me, please,” he said, “I overreacted. I ought to have known you meant quarrelsomeness, and nothing else.”

He took the water bottle Tony passed him and drank a little, swallowing painfully. “I believe I shall rest now, for a time.” He curled up on his side, his head on Tony’s lap and his back to everyone.

Tony tucked the tartan blanket around him carefully and sat in thought, running his fingers softly through Loki’s hair.

“So we’re going to Wales to hunt dragons, is that what he meant?” John asked.

Sherlock made a sound of ultimate scoffage.

Morgana (Anthea?) turned around in the front seat. “It might be best not to dismiss your brother’s concerns too quickly, Sherlock. If Mycroft believes a thing is important, most likely it is.”

“Says the thousand-year-old sorceress.” John sighed. “Pinch me please, Mary, I may be dreaming.”

His wife patted his leg instead. “There, there, darling.”

“Dragons,” John repeated, and sighed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was young, my grandmother told me a story about a measles epidemic that swept through her small Canadian community, and family of ten, when she was a girl, and the effects some people suffered (miscarriages, deafness, fatalities that included her youngest sister). Grandma was quite a storyteller, at all times, and painted a vivid picture of the events--her early life was  
> kind of like Little House on the Prairie with extra helpings of madness, dysfunction and death.
> 
> My other inspiration was an article I read about scientists using viruses as a carrier agent to introduce new genetic material into organisms. I'm pretty sure the  
> technique isn't nearly advanced enough to be used on higher creatures (though, since I originally wrote this story, huge leaps in the field have been made using CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), and that the part of the virus that makes the organism sick has already been neutralized by the time it's deployed--but what's a little pseudoscience between friends? My apologies to any actual scientists out there. Assume that those using the techniques against Loki are EVIL, and have therefore twisted beneficial scientific discoveries for their own deplorable ends.


	6. Mirror, Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group arrives in the Brecon Beacons, in Southern Wales, and settle in for a little rest before they head off on their mission. Unfortunately, thanks to the scrying glass Rupert thoughtfully packed for them, things go awry for Loki and Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, it appears that the lovely restaurant "Hello, Stranger" no longer exists in the town of Brecon.
> 
> Sherwin-Williams is a popular brand of housepaint.
> 
> The Torchwood episode Tony references is "Countrycide" (Season 1, Episode 6). 
> 
> "neck of the woods"=around here, in this vicinity
> 
> Van Gogh suffered from mental illness for most of his life, and evidence suggests Bipolar Disorder--which afflicts a disproportionate number of creative people--as the probable culprit. I have to look askance at Tony for using the term "crazycakes" to describe poor Vincent's mental state.
> 
> The Kraken is an imaginary sea monster of gigantic size that's said to occupy the waters of the north (specifically the areas off the coasts of Norway and Greenland). Its appearance is most likely based on sightings of giant squid.
> 
> First introduced to the _Doctor Who_ universe in the 1966 episode _The Tenth Planet_ , the Cybermen are a race of emotionless cyborgs that travel from planet to planet, converting other sentient beings into... them. Although their look has changed over the years, Cybermen are generally silver and have handle-like protrusions on their heads.
> 
> There are two groups of Celtic languages, Brythonic and Goidelic. Brythonic (from the Welsh word _brython_ , or “Briton”) eventually developed into the more modern languages of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.
> 
>  _Reindeers Are Better than People_ is a song from the Disney movie _Frozen_ (2013).
> 
> The "shotgun seat" is the passenger seat beside the driver's seat in the front of a motor vehicle.
> 
> A scrying mirror is a traditional divination tool used for looking into past lives, and past, present, and future events. A black scrying mirror (aka "magic mirror") is a more powerful version, thought to reveal hidden knowledge, enhance clairvoyant ability, and act as a portal to other planes of existence.
> 
> Typically, a "medium" pizza measures 12 - 14 inches across.
> 
> " _Morien y Tylwyth Teg_ " means "Morgana of the Fair Folk" in Welsh. _Brenin_ Arthur is King Arthur, and since the Welsh name Arthur is made up of components for "golden" and "bear," I decided "The Golden Bear" was a good, kingly nickname. "Medrawd" is just the Welsh version of Mordred. I'm also picking and choosing a bit through the Arthurian Legends to get what I want.
> 
> " _Myrddin, yr oeddech yn wastad yr un a Roeddwn wrth fy modd, byddaf yn gwneud_  
>  yr hyn yr ydych yn gofyn i mi"="Merlin, you were always the one I loved, I will do what you ask me."

* * *

The dour driver pulled off into a wide spot beside the road, shutting off the engine of the not-quite-limousine. Without a word, he popped the trunk, strolled around to the back, and removed their bags, which he dropped unceremoniously onto the damp grass of the verge. Only then did he have something to say. “You lot stop here now.”

They all piled out as if they’d been compelled, even Loki, who’d kept the tartan blanket wrapped around him, but despite the throw and his quilted parka was still shivering like a big, wet puppy. Sweat dampened his hair and his skin had gone back to that ominous almost-gray.

“Stop as in, ‘Time for an impromptu potty and tea break?’” Tony asked, “‘Cause I’m fairly sure that nice town we passed a while back…”

“Brecon,” Sherlock put in, looking sour and chilly even in his long coat and fetching blue scarf. It was an unremittingly gloomy kind of day, spitting down rain in a half-hearted, lackluster way, making the rolling hills and smallish mountains that stretched in every direction look blurry, grayish-green and depressing, instead of the rich emerald color they probably would have been if the weather had been brighter.

The place was probably fucking beautiful on a sunny afternoon, like something from a travel brochure. Maybe if they’d stopped by last week…?

Hills and mountains both, of course, were covered in that long, lush grass that ripples ominously in the wind. The kind featured frequently in independently-made British horror films. Ripple, ripple goes the grass, and then the werewolves jump out and munch your face. End of story.

Tony guessed jet-lag and stress might be making him a wee bit punchy. “Yeah, Brecon, that was it,” he said, yawning until his jaw popped, then rubbing his eyes. “We passed a bunch of restaurants there. Did you see the one called 'Hello, Stranger?' That sounded nice. We could have eaten there. There were hotels. Decent ones. And buildings of historical significance.” Tony put his arm around Loki’s waist. “I’ve never been to Wales before. You really expect me to come here and not admire any buildings of historical significance? I mean…”

Tony shut up suddenly, noticing Loki was starting to do some kind of stagger-sag against him. “Uh-oh, you holding up okay, babe?”

“It is very near.” Loki turned his face to the bleak sky, shutting his eyes. “The wind sings of times past and future.”

Yup, that was his guy.

“Right,” Tony said. “Anyone else remember that episode of _Torchwood_ where the team got caught up in that village of cannibals and almost turned into pork chops? That made an impression. Wasn’t it set in this neck of the woods?”

John laughed, but immediately put his hand over his mouth to stifle himself.

Tony understood why —it didn’t really seem like the time or place. He himself had no good reason for blathering on except tiredness and tension. He was crazy worried about Loki, not to mention more than slightly freaked about the situation.

John seemed like a really practical, fairly literal kind of person. If you said “dragons” to him, he'd answer, “Okay, dragons, got it,” and start cooperating with you to come up with a concrete step-by-step plan to deal with them. Mrs. John appeared to be more or less the same. Sherlock, on the other hand, would stand there sneering in his big, men’s couture coat whether the fire-lizards turned out to be real or imaginary, right up to and including the point when they toasted him like a crumpet.

Anthea/Morgana (he’d have to flat out ask which she preferred) and Rupert were both magic users, it was true, but to use a painting metaphor, in honor of his fiancé, they were like the people who rolled a few gallons of Sherwin-Williams on your suburban home and made it look nice and tidy. They’d properly dispose of their brushes and drop-cloths afterward, then present you with a properly itemized invoice on company stationery.

Loki, on the other hand (and not to say Tony didn’t adore him just exactly as he was), could pass for Van Gogh—equal parts lovable, impossible, wildly creative, bursting with talent and—dare he say it—to some extent crazycakes.

Also, at the moment, both extremely hormonal and very, very ill, which Tony guessed wasn’t doing all that much for his rational thinking. As witnessed by the fact that Loki had wandered out into the road, blanket trailing, his face still turned up toward the gray clouds and those nebulous tendrils of green light he called his _seiðr_ writhing around him as if he was in the grips of a ghostly yet overly-caffeinated kraken.

Tony didn’t catch sight of them often—those _seiðr_ tendrils--but he had never, for damn sure, seen that many writhing around Loki at one time, not even in Castle Doom.

“It is everywhere. Everywhere,” Loki said, then paused to cough his guts out. “Do you feel it?”

Tony looked at Mary and John, who shook their heads. Rupert and Anthea, however, both had a definite air of squirmy-but-trying-to-hide-it. Even Sherlock seemed tense, and too downright pissed to admit he felt anything.

“This is balderdash!” he snapped.

“Are you sure it’s not malarkey?” Tony asked innocently. He’d discovered in himself a no-doubt-regrettable need to tease his soon-to-be son-in-law (and there was one of Loki’s kids he sure as hell wouldn’t be adopting) whenever an opportunity presented itself. “Or possibly bull-puckey?”

This time Mary was the one who laughed. “You’re a wicked smart-arse, Tony,” she told him, still giggling—probably from a little unrelieved tension of her own.

Their driver remained perfectly robot-like—and not even one of Tony’s robots, either, which all had charm and personality, he liked to tell himself. This dude was flat and humorless as a Cyberman, only missing a big, silver handle-head. Still, the guy caught him completely off guard when he slammed shut the trunk, climbed into the driver's seat, revved up the engine and sped away, clipping Loki in the process (it looked like deliberately) and knocking him off his feet.

“Oi! You fucking twat!” Mary yelled after him at full volume and in startled fury.

Loki climbed slowly off the asphalt before Tony could even reach him, losing the trailing blanket entirely in the process. He started an unsteady pacing, mumbling an extended commentary in a language that left even Rupert shrugging.

Anthea (aka Morgana) stepped forward, actually a little unsteady too, though whether with (Tony assumed) the overabundance of local magic in the air, or with trying to walk in her sky-high Christian Louboutin heels on the rain-softened verge, he couldn’t have said. Maybe the latter, because she seemed to do better once she made it to the paved road. She spoke to Loki in the same language, taking his arm in an almost sisterly way, patting it gently as she spoke.

Eventually, Loki seemed to come down to earth. When they turned back toward the shoulder, his eyes were focused on her.

Of course, they were _also_ weeping blood tears.

“It was Brythonic, Rupert,” Anthea informed him. “In case you were wondering.”

“Brythonic! Of course!” the (former?) Watcher exclaimed. “How foolish of me. I knew those vowels! I must not be thinking clearly.”

He removed his glasses and polished off the rain water, using an impeccable, if slightly damp, old-school pocket handkerchief. He was frowning, looking disappointed with himself that he’d let down the team. It hit Tony that in the older man’s mind there were no small mistakes. Instead, the slightest failure could equal death for someone he loved. What a fucking terrifying way to live.

“Up ahead,” Anthea informed them, briskly but kindly enough, “Between this hill and the next, there ought to be a group of caravans for our use. I suggest we repair there, brew some tea and plan our strategy.”

“’Caravans’ meaning trailers or such, Tony reminded himself, not the brightly-painted wagons associated with stereotypical fortune-tellers and swarthy men with large mustaches, folks Victor von Doom would readily befriend. And ‘repair’ as in go there. He had to agree—he was getting majorly chilly and somewhat damp, and the scenery, which probably really would have been beautiful under other circumstances, had started to bring him down him.

There were a fucking lot of mountains and hills. Unless Loki turned out to be some kind of ruined-castle magnet, they were heading into needle in a haystack territory, and the search could take days or even weeks.

“What Anthea said,” Tony sighed. “God, I wish I was home with the kids, eating pepperoni pizza and watching _Frozen_ for the 847th time.”

John, Mary and Rupert laughed sympathetically.

They repaired, Sherlock following in a snit, having had a brief and quietly-hissed argument with John on the subject of helping to carry luggage.

Tony snagged Loki in passing—even if he hadn’t required the support, which he clearly did, as he really seemed to be on his last legs, he also had that lost, confused look which spoke of him being in dire need of comforting. Tony linked their cold fingers and tucked them both together into the pocket of his parka.

“It’s all right,” he told Loki. “It’s not far now. We’ll be inside soon, babe.”

“I miss the children very much, belovéd,” Loki said in return, thank the gods not speaking Brythonic (Brythonic? Honestly?) anymore. He had almost no voice left at all. “And I cry your pardon sincerely, for I feel Myrddin everywhere in these hills, and miss him with the deepest of pain in my heart, though that does not in any way detract, please believe me, from the great love I feel for you. For I would not injure you in any way, dearest Tony.”

“I do appreciate the thought, sweetheart,” Tony answered. “I do.”

It killed him that Loki sounded so upset, so worried about him, for the gods’ sake. Why in hell should Loki worry about him? He wasn’t a tender snowflake, he was fine.

“Oh, joy,” Sherlock commented. “I believe the rain’s turning to snow.”

“That…” Anthea stopped a moment, glaring down at her expensive, mud-splattered shoes. “Is purely unnecessary!” A wave of her hand, a flurry of orange sparks and the Louboutins converted themselves to a pair of sturdy sneakers, complete with woolly socks inside.

“Mycroft will damn well reimburse me for those,” she declared.

The shoes, it pleased Tony to note, still possessed red soles.

“When I first learned the word,” Loki said, “I became confused, and believed an anorak to be a species of small antelope or deer, something along the order of a dik-dik or perhaps a pudú.”

 _Really, babe?_ Tony thought. _Really?_ That totally came out of the blue, even by Loki standards.

“Because you are wearing one,” Loki said.

“A small antelope or deer?”

“An anorak, beloved,” Loki corrected, in his patient-voice. “My hand is in the pocket with yours.”

He added sadly, as an afterthought, “There are so very many words.”

“We should probably get him indoors as soon as possible,” John advised, coming up beside them to take Loki’s other arm.

“The northern pudú,” Rupert said, “Is the smallest deer in the world. It measures only thirteen inches at the shoulder and dates back to the Pleistocene.

“And that, in a nutshell, Rupert, my friend,” Tony put in, “Is why you and Lok are buddies.”

Rupert laughed heartily, then proved without a doubt that he had young kids at home by treating them to a tuneful rendition of “ _Reindeers Are Better than People_ ” the rest of the way to the caravans.

Their shelters turned out to be the British equivalent of Winnebagos, four of them, fairly good sized. They all filed into the nearest, Tony switching on the lights, which luckily worked, as he entered. After a second, remembering something he’d glimpsed but not quite registered, he backed out again, went around to the rear end of the caravan and scaled the flimsy ladder that led to the roof.

Sure enough, there they were, perfectly familiar (after all, how long had he carried one in his very own chest) perching atop each motorhome like a shining blue hat. Arc reactors. Smaller than the one that powered Stark (aka Avengers) Tower, bigger than the one that had protected his heart.

“Well, damn,” Tony murmured. “Bastards poached my fucking tech.”

“…a loft bed,” Loki was saying as Tony came back in, and proceeded to crawl into it, fully clothed, including jacket and boots. Tony sighed. Apparently Thor and Loki never had bunk beds, and Loki was making up for lost opportunities.

“Not now, babe,” he said, “Forgive me, but you’re even more seriously punchy than I am, and I don’t want you either falling out or sitting up too fast and smacking your head on the ceiling.”

He tugged on Loki’s booted ankle. “C’mon, sweetheart, down you get.”

Loki slithered over the edge, remarkably graceful for one in his mental and physical state, though Tony didn’t like noting that he’d moved into the full-on zombie-gray pallor again.

He rested his forearms against Tony’s shoulders, his forehead against the top of Tony’s head. “You are wise, as ever, _hjarta hjarta minn_ , though the loft bed was appealing. Oh, Tony, I feel very much unwell. And there is melting snow in your hair. Does it snow in the wide world?”

Nearly his whole weight was leaning on Tony by this point. “Is there ginger tea, best belovéd? I would have ginger tea, if any is available, and would also wish to sleep a little, before we begin.”

“I insist on it, sweetie,” Tony said, sitting him down on the bigger, floor-level bed, unzipping Loki’s jacket and easing it off his shoulders as gently as possible, then taking Loki’s sweater up from the back and sliding it forward over his head. Loki gasped at even the tiniest jiggling of his arm.

“I’ll take another look at that,” John said, while Rupert and Mary volunteered to see to tea.

Sherlock and Anthea sat on their asses by the table. Apparently “helpful” wasn’t in their vocabularies that afternoon. Sherlock must have exhausted himself carrying one small bag that wasn’t his own.

Tony did enjoy the way they mutually glared at each other—clearly no love lost between those two.

While John undid the bandage, Tony removed his fiancé’s boots and wooly socks. Loki curled up on his side on the bed, uncomplaining as John did something fairly disgusting with his arm but, when Tony took his other hand, squeezing nearly to the point of causing pain.

The doctor took his pulse again, and his temperature, shaking his head. “It’s even higher than before. However urgent this mission is, Loki, you’ re done for the day. Why don’t you help him into his night things, Tony, whilst I get a drip ready?”

Tony grabbed Loki’s bag from the jumble on the floor and slid shut the partition that gave privacy to the sleeping area. He left Loki’s t-shirt alone, even though it was one of his tight, stylish ones, rather than the oversized, comfortable ex-Thor monstrosities he was prone to wearing to bed.

Getting him out of his equally snug jeans and into a pair of sweats proved challenging, given that Loki was not only mostly incoherent but also barely awake, the overhead was low with the loft just above, and Loki had insanely long legs.

When he and John emerged, sliding the partition shut again behind them, Rupert and Mary had worked a little magic of their own in the kitchenette and had a large pot of tea on the table, along with a plate of enough sandwiches to feed a medium-sized army. The air smelled pleasantly of chicken soup simmering.

“Nice touch,” Tony commented.

“I threw it together thinking Loki might enjoy some, later,” Rupert said. “I know he can’t abide tinned things. At Oxford we had what was called, in those old, politically incorrect days, a gypsy kitchen, just a hob, sink and refrigerator, near our rooms—Loki and I were on the same corridor—and there was always a pot of soup, bubbling away. In the whole time we were at university together, I never witnessed Loki consume anything but soup and the odd piece of toast. He’d never touch a morsel when we dined formally, in hall, as we were now and then required to do. For the longest time I never understood why he said it reminded him too much of home. Not knowing he’d been raised a prince of Asgard, of course.”

Sherlock let loose with one of his best scoffs, picked up a sandwich half, sniffed it, and set it down on his plate with apparent disdain.

“Oh, eat the damned thing, Sherlock,” John laughed, shaking his head. “You’d leave eyeballs in our fridge times without number, but you turn up your nose at perfectly good roast beef?”

Tony and Rupert raised their eyebrows at each other across the table. Tony had found himself liking Rupert, who was kind, and made Loki soup, and knew all the words to “ _Reindeers Are Better than People_.” What was not to like there?

“Not for the purposes of eating, naturally,” John said, taking a big bite of cheese-and-pickle sandwich. Swallowing, he added. ”For experimental reasons, allegedly, though I suspect they were actually there to terrorize Mrs. Hudson, should she peep inside our refrigerator. I’m certain Sherlock found her screams very satisfactory.”

“How did he get them?” Mary asked. “Smuggled out behind Molly’s back when she wasn’t looking?”

“I suspect,” John said, then explained, “Our friend Molly is a pathologist at St. Bart’s, where I received my training.”

“Right around the corner from the Museum of London?” Rupert put in. “My eldest granddaughter is serving an internship there. At the Museum, that is, not St. Bartholomew’s.” He smiled and sipped his tea. “Even my mind boggles slightly at the thought that I have grandchildren—three of them--older than my children at home. Oh, the perils of taking a young bride! My eldest son is, I think, nearly your age, Tony. Have you any children?”

“I’ll be adopting Loki’s three kids once we’re married. We've been tight since the day they were born. Just like you saw in the pictures, they’re triplets, full of the devil, and cute as buttons. And you were, what, two when your oldest boy arrived?” Tony grinned.

Maybe Rupert really did have shoddy math skills.

“Fifteen,” Rupert answered softly, though his voice suddenly took on something, beneath the gentleness, which was bitter and filled with rage—though not against Tony, even if his question had been misplaced.

“As you may recall, Morgana…” The way he said her name was chilling. “His mother came from your family tree.”

“I prefer Anthea,” she said, eyes narrowing slightly, “Except with very old friends. I thought I knew you.” Her voice was clipped, not the least bit friendly. “Moira’s boy. The street urchin. The runaway. Yes. Except that she did not call you Rupert, she called you…”

“Ripper,” the Watcher answered, still not raising the volume, though his tone had turned silken and dangerous.

It hit Tony, suddenly, that much as he was liking Rupert, he would not want to get on this man’s bad side, or hurt someone he held dear.

“And yes, madam, I was the one who hid Sebastian so that you could not find him. You’ll remember, please, that my lineage has existed centuries longer than yours, and that the Wild Wood is everywhere, even where it cannot be seen. It proves useful in such cases.”

He sat back in his seat, his weathered features in that moment, both kind and terrifying. “Sebastian is a Giles, and my son. You had no right to him. He was a beautiful boy, and is a wonderful man, and the world would be poorer without him. I am not sorry in the least to have flouted your traditions. Furthermore, Moira, daughter of your line, agreed with me. She always found the majority of your ways outdated and petty.”

Anthea rose from the table, making a noise something between the hiss and the spitting of a cat.

She stalked away, snatching up her bag as she went. For a moment it seemed as if the red soles of her shoes left footprints of blood on the floor, but that was just an illusion, or a reflection, or something equally unreal.

“Because…” She paused briefly in the doorway. “I’m the only one in this room who’s done something in my past I regret.” The door slammed behind her as she left.

“Ooh, a sudden goose on my grave,” Mary said, shivering, pulling her cardigan tighter around herself. “Why did you need to hide Sebastian, Rupert?”

“His mother’s family—Anthea’s kin—would surely have slain him. Behind their current family seat, in Cornwall, hundreds of small bones are buried, it is said. Until Sebastian, the last boy of that line let to live was the son of _Brenin_ Arthur, the Golden Bear himself, and that was Morgana’s own boy Medrawd, who was brought up only to be an instrument of her vengeance. Of course, Morgana was not her name then. She was Morien _y Tylwyth Teg_ , in those days and, as they all are, she was ginger-haired.”

Tony stared at Rupert, with his faraway gaze and his rich, deep storyteller’s voice, and wondered if sometimes he lived so much in the past it sometimes seemed more real to him than the present, if those legendary figures from way back felt just like the people you’d meet on the street.

Maybe he should ask himself the same question, since he slept each night with a godlike being from centuries-old mythology, and drove the Midgard Serpent to playdates and soccer practice. Not to mention Fenrir the Wolf, and Hela the Queen of the Dead--if the legends were to be believed. Or not them, as the case might be. Loki’s explanations of the Norse cycles of existence tended to go something like this: “Of course I am Loki, but not Loki, don’t you see? It’s perfectly clear, dearest.”

They tended to make his brain bleed. Kind of like Loki’s when Tony tried to explain calculus to him.

Kurt, who was an intelligent guy in his own right, and quite capable of doing calculus, up to a certain point, until the cows came home, had a theory that the reason Loki couldn’t seem to do math in any way, shape or form was that it was it was basically too simple for him, like asking someone to name the 3-D shape of an object by showing him a single straight line, or worse yet, a single point on that line. He pointed out that if you could instinctively manipulate the fabric of the universe, barely needing to think, scribbling equations on a whiteboard might seem a little passé.”

Maybe Kurt was right. He always seemed to understand the workings of Loki’s mind better than Tony ever did.

When S.H.I.E.L.D. had held Loki captive, and he’d been pleading for death, Kurt had been the only one able to reach and comfort him, his only ray of brightness in all that dark. It was something Tony felt grateful for and jealous of, all at the same time.

“If everyone’s finished, I’ll just wrap up these sandwiches and put them in the fridge,” Rupert said. He proceeded to do just that, and also turned the heat off under the soup, giving it a quick stir first. Tony watched him absently, a big man moving briskly and confidently around the tiny kitchen area.

“Anthea’s taken one caravan,” Sherlock said. “I shall take another. John and Mary, I suppose, will have the fourth.”

I’ll just sleep out in the snow, shall I?” Rupert asked, deftly pouring soup into the British equivalent of a Tupperware container. ”Perhaps someone might toss me a pillow?"

“You wouldn’t want to bunk with Sherlock,” John said. “You’d find… parts. Of things. And you wouldn’t know where they’d come from. It’s like keeping a cat that enjoys hunting.” John paused to consider. “Actually, I’m not sure if it makes it better or worse that you don’t know where they’ve come from.”

“Ha,” Sherlock said, “Very funny indeed.” But—wonder of wonders—he’d said it almost fondly, and he and John grinned at each other. He then went up to the front of the caravan, made himself comfortable by reclining the shotgun seat all the way back, and started reading a large book about the local geology, judging by the snippets he declaimed now and then.

The rest of them arranged themselves around the cabin, as comfortably as they could and, with the sound turned low, watched the news first in Welsh (a sure indicator of how burned out they all felt), then the exact same news in English.

Tony was fairly impressed with the way both interviewers and interviewees went from their musical native tongue right, without a hitch, into the kind of English Loki, Rupert, Sherlock and Anthea spoke. What was called “Received Pronunciation.”

On the screen, a man in tall boots was weighing a calf in a sling on a portable scale (so far as Tony could tell) when Loki started screaming, flinging himself either at the ceiling or at the partitions on either side of the bed.

Tony cursed himself immediately—how could he have been so stupid? He hadn’t left a light on in there, and Loki wouldn't know where he was—with S.H.I.E.L.D., Baldr and Co., in the cave beneath the mountain where the serpent burned his eyes out, drop by slow drop--the possibilities were endless, and none of them good.

“He has formed the insides of my son into my chains!” Loki shrieked, in English for a change. “Oh, let me release him, let me release him, do not put me down below the earth again!”

Tony sighed. Variations on that dream again. Poor Loki had to be, at least subconsciously, beyond freaked about going under a mountain. It didn’t exactly turn out well for him last time.

“Lok?” he called out gently. “I’m sliding open the door to let some light in. Please don’t chuck anything at my head. No one’s going to hurt you or anyone else. You’re with friends.” He said in an aside to John. “He has bad PTSD. There should be some pills in his bag. The black one, with the green swooshies on it.”

John nodded. Mary was already undoing zippers.

Tony slid the door, Loki crying out at the noise of the runners, pressing his hands over his ears. He was crouched on the bed looking feral and crazed, his eyes blazing like two green flames in their pools of red, his inky hair sticking out everywhere like he’d just received a giant shock.

“Where is the mirror?” he demanded. “Who has the mirror?”

“Loki, this isn’t the time,” Rupert said calmly. “You should not use such a thing in your current health.”

“You would deny it me?” Loki replied, his voice dropping low, almost to a growl.

He should have looked, and sounded, terrifying, but he didn’t. He looked wretched—ill, possibly delusional, definitely at the end of his tether, being ripped apart by outside influences that were too much for him in his present state.

 _God, I should never have brought him here_ , Tony thought. _No matter what the Minister said. No matter what Loki said himself. This is crazy, and it’s gonna kill my baby. Both my babies, big one and little one._

Loki flung his arm up into the air--what, again, should have been a commanding gesture, except that his wrist and hand were so thin, so delicate. They looked like a strong wind could shatter them, and they were shaking horribly.

Nonetheless, something round and darkly shining, about the size (it struck Tony, ridiculously) of a medium pizza, flew up out of Rupert’s luggage, spiraling through the air until it landed, flat on the bed, between Loki’s knees.

Tony could hardly see him clearly for all the _seiðr_ around him, threads and tendrils and downright fucking tentacles of the stuff, writhing and whipping through the air.

Rupert squeezed ahead, putting himself in front of them.

Loki glared in his direction, though maybe he wasn’t seeing anything—his eyes were rolled right back to blank redness. With all the magic in the air his ears, nose, mouth were gushing blood, and it got worse as Loki’s fingers touched the edge of the mirror—if it was a mirror.

It was and it wasn’t, Tony realized. 

It shone, but it was with a grayish-black shine, like the thing was made from polished hematite. Green smoke moved inside the surface, and it sang, with a single, high, ringing note.

Tony became aware, with a shock, that his nose was bleeding too. So were John’s and Mary’s. He couldn’t see Sherlock.

“Get out!” Rupert commanded. “Get out, all of you! It's hideously dangerous. You haven’t personal wards, this could mean your destruction. Someone fetch Morgana for me—together we might just contain it!”

“But Loki…” Tony began.

“It would kill him to harm you, can’t you see that?” Rupert shouted. His nose had started to bleed too, just the tiniest trickle.

“Get them out,” Sherlock’s snotty voice said suddenly. "Take them yourself." He’d somehow managed to worm his way in front of Rupert until he was right by the bed. Sherlock went to his knees on the floor, reaching out to grip both Loki’s wrists tightly, by force pulling his hands away from the mirror’s rim.

 _“Pabbi!_ ” he shouted. “ _Pabbi,_ look at me. Not at the glass, at me. What are you seeing?”

Loki glanced down, his eyes focusing more and more closely on Sherlock’s face, his expression so anguished Tony could hardly stand to look. _“Myrddin, yr oeddech yn wastad yr un a Roeddwn wrth fy modd, byddaf yn gwneud yr hyn yr_ _ydych yn gofyn i mi_ ," he said, his voice utterly broken.

Sherlock released his wrists, and Loki cupped his son’s face, softly, lovingly, between both hands instead, the two of them staring at each other as if nothing else existed in the world.

They vanished the next moment in a curl of green smoke and a twist of _seiðr_.

The mirror shattered into a thousand pieces.


	7. Sherlock Holmes's School Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite no communications, deepening snow, a broken mirror and Tony having brought the wrong suit, the Caravan Gang formulates a plan for helping Loki and Sherlock. Meanwhile, underground, Sherlock takes an extended stroll through his Memory Palace. Loki's there when he returns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" are the magic words used by the Fairy Godmother in Disney's 1950 animated version of _Cinderella_.
> 
> Salt, iron and silver are said to be among the things disliked or untouchable by magical beings.
> 
>  _Prinsinn af hjarta mínu_ = "prince of my heart"
> 
> In this context "muppet"=idiot, rather than a Jim Henson creation.
> 
>  _Pax_ =peace (Latin)
> 
> A Biro (named after its inventor) is known to Americans as a ballpoint pen.
> 
> Pre-Raphaelite painters often depicted women with long, thick, gloriously wavy red or strawberry blonde hair.
> 
> "Pindar House" is named after the Greek lyric poet Pindar, born about 520 BCE. The "college" the boys attend (meaning a place of communal living and study, rather than a center of higher education in the American sense) is mainly based on my having watched excessive amounts of Masterpiece Theater in my youth.
> 
> Seb is emphatically not Sebastian Moran, from Holmes canon. He and his "sister"  
> were, however, mentioned in the previous chapter. Mea Culpa for bringing in OC's at  
> this junction--I don't usually, but kidSherlock badly needed a school friend, and I wanted that friend to be someone from a similar background. 
> 
> Seb's sister has made the switch to severe tweed suits because she's recently been ordained as a Watcher. She has to go where they send her, in this case to take up her  
> position with a new Slayer.
> 
> Yes, Sherlock's name is canon, amazingly enough, though I did make up Mycroft's name. Seb's surname (St. Ives) would be pronounced SinTives, by the same quirk of English pronunciation that renders the name "St. John" as SinJen. I know not why this is.
> 
> Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Walter Raleigh were noted British explorers, though Scott, at the least, didn't approach his journey to the South Pole in the most practical way. In exploration, as in life, noble sentiments are no replacement for good planning.
> 
> "court shoes"=pumps, the kind of shoe a professional woman wears to work.
> 
> " _ap Myrddin_ "="Son of Myrddin" (Welsh)
> 
> "Rosebud" is the name of Charles Foster Kane's childhood sled in the classic Orson Welles film, _Citizen Kane_. At the end of a life of power and wealth, it is the only thing left that still has meaning to him.

* * *

Tony became aware of his knees folding, dumping him onto the edge of the bed. He was also aware of his mouth hanging open, a sound coming out that sounded something like “Aah… awk?”

It was ridiculous. _He_ was ridiculous. Where had happened to his inner Iron Man? Packed up in the damn suitcase with his suit? He should be better than this. He should be way fucking tougher. Avenger and Man of Action, right?

But Loki had vanished right in front of him, and that went beyond unacceptable into unimaginable, then rocketed right on past that into un-freakin’-hinging him, until Tony’s so-called genius IQ became about as useful as the circles a goddamn caged gerbil runs on its exer-wheel.

“L-L-Loki?” he finally managed to stammer, but that was it.

Outside it had turned to full dark, the temperature well below freezing. Tony could feel the edge of the chill right through the motorhome’s thin walls, and they’d already kicked up the heat twice since they’d arrived that afternoon (thank him for those arc reactors, he’d been a fucking clever dude once upon a time, back when he could think—and where had the Minister’s people gotten the specs to build them anyway? there was a Stark Industries security hole he’d surely want to block with a quickness).

Snow had started coming down like a bitch, something Loki’s _Jötunn_ osity should in theory have protected him, but it didn’t, these days, did it? Every time Tony looked at his fiancé he caught him shivering miserably, trying to get warm. Not to mention that Loki was out of his head with fever, pregnant, hurting…

Oh, gods, his poor Loki!"

“Rupert,” he finally all-but-whimpered, “I lost Loki. I lost him.” He sounded like a little kid. Tony hated himself for letting that voice leave his mouth, hated the pathetic weakness of it—and hadn’t he sworn for good when he was fifteen he’d never be weak like that again? Yeah, he’d care. A person had to care, but he’d never care so much that it hurt him. Not Tony Stark, Billionaire, Genius, Philanthropist, Ex-Playboy. Not Iron Man.

How could he be all those things and still be this scared? How could he be all those things and still not have the ability to lock that stupid, small whimpery voice up tight inside of him?

He’d been ashamed/hurt/worried/sad when Loki, in his righteous snit, had bibbety-bobbety-boo’d straight away from him at Heathrow Airport, but he’d known, basically, that Loki would be okay. It had been relationship damage control, more than anything, that concerned him.

This wasn’t anything like the same situation. Loki hadn’t done this deliberately, Tony knew that. He hadn’t left because he was upset, he’d gone because he was crazy-out-of-his-head sick, unable to defend himself, and that fucking thing of Rupert's, whatever it really was, had sucked him right through the wrong side of the looking glass, out into who-knows-where in time and space.

Tony found himself touched, though, that Sherlock tried to step in. Maybe there was a whisper of hope after all for Loki’s least-appealing child.

Rupert’s big, warm hand rested on Tony’s shoulder, and he knew he was supposed to take some comfort from it, but he just felt too terrified, too sick with a panic that went beyond his nightmares of Afghanistan, or even of the Chitauri, so exponentially far beyond those fears they seemed like episodes of _My Little Pony_.

The thought of his god of mischief scared and driven, overwhelmed by magic that didn’t belong to him, that he couldn’t get anything like a handle on in his current condition, caused Tony nearly physical pain. Determined as Loki had been to carry out his mission, it wasn’t like he’d actually needed to go right that second, and he’d known that.

Loki would have stayed, Tony told himself. He would have stayed until they could help him.

Now he could be anywhere. Anywhere. With only his not-exactly empathetic kid to… 

To do whatever Sherlock _would_ do in that sort of situation. Which Tony kind of guessed wouldn’t exactly overwhelm in the areas of tenderness and caring.

Rupert, of course, (who, we’ll recall, had sent a girl he loved with his whole heart out into the dark alone night after night to face a good possibility of violent death at the hands of bloodthirsty monsters), although probably fairly shocked himself, appeared well equipped to step up and be the grownup. This was hardly his first rodeo, after all.

“John, Mary,” the Watcher said calmly. His posh, resonant voice definitely tended to inspire confidence. “I believe I spied a pair of torches in the lowest of the kitchen drawers. I hate to send you out into the storm but I believe, at this juncture, Morgana’s presence would be useful to us.”

John left off shaking his cell phone, poking buttons, and making aggravated faces at the screen—he obviously had zero service at their current location--to allow the older man his full attention.

“For… er… magic purposes, you mean?”

Rupert gave a grim smile, and sat on the bed next to Tony. He combed gingerly through the mirror-shards with his fingers while Mary and John suited up in coats, hats and gloves, and located the flashlights--in the bottom drawer, just as he’d told them.

“Watch yourselves,” he said, as the couple reached the door.

“Ah… Is there something…?” Mary began. To Tony’s very great surprise she pulled a completely-illegal-in-Britain handgun from her coat pocket—a Sig Sauer, it looked like—checking the action quickly and efficiently. There was, strangely, an unmistakable element of Natasha’s, “Who? Me? No, I was never an assassin, why do you ask such a thing?” to her demeanor.

And yet she looked like a one hundred per cent completely ordinary lady.

 _Fuck,_ Tony thought, blinking. _John’s nurse and significant other is a killer-for-hire. Ex, hopefully, rather than current. Did the doctor have any clue?_

“I meant be careful of the snow,” Rupert responded in a mild voice. “It might be slippery outdoors.”

John actually giggled. “That’s my blushing bride!” he said. Damn, he did know? That was interesting.

Though he had to be nearly as worried about his friend as Tony was about Loki (god, the two of them were barefoot, for fuck’s sake, and minimally clothed, Sherlock in just a dress shirt and slacks, Loki in his t-shirt and sweats), John gave off an unmistakable calm-under-pressure kind of vibe. Or maybe—and here was a thought--under that capable, doctory exterior, lay the heart of a fellow adrenaline junkie?

Unlike Tony, however, John was definitely not freaking. He probably also took his spouse’s (possibly) former career in stride completely.

“It might be icy,” John agreed with Rupert. “We’ll watch our steps.”

The way John said the innocent words made them sound like code for something amazingly sinister.

Though that also might just be Tony’s paranoia taking over.

The older man continued sifting through the pieces as John and Mary left, humming a soft tune, a short series of notes repeated, quiet and soothing, like one of those old, old songs Loki played sometimes on that goddamned lute he'd picked up in an antique store in the Village, repaired and restrung.

That goddamned lute. Those goddamned beautiful ancient songs. The precise, graceful dance of Loki's thin, white fingers over the thin steel strings...

For a few seconds Tony thought he would faint, his need to have Loki back again, right there, right then was so intense, but gradually he felt himself go not so much calm as numb head-to-toe, fixating on the movement of Rupert’s large but elegant hands. Fine white scars cut all over his knuckles and a huge, jagged scar across his left palm, though it didn’t appear to bother him any —fortunately, since he appeared to be a leftie. Most of the chips the Watcher sorted through were no bigger than postage stamps, and the cheap ones at that, not even the large, decorative, commemorative issues.

Eventually, Rupert located a chunk under all the rest about the size of a playing card, a sharp-edged and darkly-shining rectangle.

“This may do,” he murmured, “If fortune favors fools.”

Rupert set the big piece gently just where Loki had been sitting before he vanished, then went to the cupboard to collect another piece of Tupperware, storing every last crumb of broken mirror inside. Weirdly, he then pulled out a container of Kosher salt (Tony saw the Star of David on the packaging), sprinkled the contents thoroughly and popped the lid to seal it.

 _Yeah_ , Tony thought, ‘ _Cause it’s so important to properly season those evil magic bits. And_ …

He watched the older man stow the Tupperware in the freezer.

_…make sure they stay fresh?_

“WTF, Rupert?” he said.

The older man carried on as if he hadn’t heard. He looked tired, though—probably well past tea-and-slippers-in-the-bosom-of-his-family time for him. Or the bath-and-story portion of the evening, depending on the ages of his children.

Tony had a sudden, almost crippling flash of himself with Fen at bath time, sculpting the two of them elaborate bubble-beards and mustaches—and of little Fen calling out his first ever words (since the fuckery of Castle Doom) at the sight of Tony’s long foam facial hair.

“Santa!” he’d crowed. “Santa Daddy!"

Loki had come skidding in, nearly distraught, struck by Tony’s unchecked surge of feeling, then sank down on the closed toilet seat, both hands over his mouth.

Which was this thing he did instead of crying. Because big, strong _Ӕsir_ men didn’t cry, even when their wounded babies learn to talk again.

And, yes, the ironies of Tony’s own hang-ups weren’t lost on him.

“Loki lives on feelings,” Rupert said, in a thoughtful voice, as if following up on the crap in Tony’s head. “He has done as long as I’ve known him. That makes him formidable and highly dangerous as a sorcerer, wonderfully resourceful, but… random. I hope you understand, Tony, that isn’t a criticism. I deeply love, but am, at times, terrified both by and for him. I’ve found the terms both mischief and chaos are often bandied about far too carelessly, without being understood in their complexities. Everything about Loki speaks of duality: two-sexed, two-souled—the incompatible _Jötunn_ and _Ӕsir_ at war in one body. Double-natured—the light and dark of him, the creative and destructive, the joyous and despairing, exaltation and shame…”

He studied Tony closely with his ice-green eyes.

“His capacity for emotion is enormous. Unfathomably so, perhaps, to the likes of you and me.”

“So what about good and evil?” Tony said, almost--kind of--catching his emotional breath. “If we’re bandying terms. Are you trying to warn me about something, Rupert?”

Rupert frowned. “Loki’s not evil. He never has been evil, not in this cycle, at least. Misguided, acting on the spur-of-the-moment, performing in the heat of unknowable passion, perhaps even in the heat of agony, but not evil. I would not excuse all his actions, assuredly. Many were, without question, ill-advised, but he is a boy who’s had no sort of upbringing, taught nothing by his elders or his society that would ever truly help him, and more damaged in his heart than anyone I have ever known. Are you a patient man, Tony? Do you understand how young, and how hurt, he really is?”

“Were you Loki’s lover?” Tony asked in return, wondering if Loki had skated a little around the truth, wondering, too if he really wanted to hear Rupert's answer, and how that answer could really matter anyway. He harbored a sneaking suspicion that tweed-wearing, museum-curating Rupert might actually be a hell of a lot cooler than he was, probably in more than one sense of the word--and there came jealousy again, raising its ugly head, when Tony needed it least.

“Now and then,” Rupert said. “Long in the past. We had both lost our great loves, or so we thought, being young—for I was young then, too, of course. We were in need of succor. I was not so different, for him, from Myrddin, while he was nothing at all, to me, like Randall. That was what we required, in those moments. It’s a bit of a dagger in my heart to see him as he is, still so youthful, so marvelous… And here I am, a stodgy old man, who knows the world has moved on, and my time for gods passed by me. Actually, I admire your courage, Tony.”

“Because I’m likewise no spring chicken, you mean? Gee, thanks, Rupert.”

The Watcher gave him a gentle smile. “Only consider your answer carefully, Tony, for when he offers you the apple. Weigh your decision. Be aware that youth, pleasant as it sounds, isn’t all that fruit contains.”

“We’re talking about produce? Now? When Loki… and, uh, Sherlock are missing?”

Rupert sighed, picking up the card-sized sheet of mirror. “Produce, Tony? Not exactly. Perhaps that topic should await another day.” He warmed the rectangle between his hands. “Now then, here’s Morgana. Let’s hear what she has to tell us.”

“This is sky-forged metal,” Morgana said, frowning. “You must know I can’t touch it, Rupert.”

She stared at him a full minute with dark, narrowed eyes. “I’m surprised to find you’re neither iron nor silver sensitive, Ο γιος του Πάνα.”

“Son of Pan, do you call me?” Rupert smiled thinly. The two of them were _so_ not friends—willing to work together out of necessity, maybe, but Tony could practically see the rivers of bad blood and philosophical differences gushing fast and deep between them. He wasn’t sure, personally, he could have gone even that far, with someone who’d threatened Jöri or Fen.

God, he missed the kids almost as much as he missed Loki, even knowing they were perfectly safe in Kurt and Logan’s caring hands. Hela, always crazy-protective of her Pabbi, was going to be so damn mad at him.

“I am quite well warded, Morgana,” the Watcher said, “And my wards seem to withstand the contact excellently, without buckling, to this point at least.”

“It makes my hair curl.” Anthea’s hair remained, of course, completely perfect, not one strand out of place, minus even a trace of woolly-hat-hair or static cling. “Horrid thing.” She made a face at the shining rectangle. “Someone turn up the heat, it’s fucking freezing in here. There’s a reason I left these parts in 833 and never looked back again. Bloody weather.”

“I love Wales,” Mary said. She finished stamping the snow off her boots and came to join them. “I like the seaside best, but the hills are lovely. We’d often holiday here when I was small. It’s marvelous for hiking. Have you been to Hay-on-Wye? That’s a whole town of used bookshops. A whole damn town! It’s just amazing, truly.” She drew her fingertip down the chunk of mirror. “The armor of the armored bears was made of sky-forged iron, or something like that. In _The Golden Compass_ , that is, which is a book I’m completely mental about. They were like Vikings, you know. Only, actually, polar bears.”

”My wife, lady and gentlemen,” John said, grinning fondly.

“So was—is—Loki. Mental for that book,” Tony said. “I mean, he liked it. A lot.” Now that Rupert wasn’t humming anymore, Tony felt increasingly stressed and depressed. He suspected the older man had been slipping a sneaky little bit of magical Valium into him with that tune.

“Indeed,” Anthea said, drily. She clearly meant, _You peasants are fucking idiots_. Like Loki with his princing, their newest member of the Thousand-Plus-Year-Old Club clearly had princessing down to a science. Maybe it was the centuries of practice.

“Okay, for the numbskulls—meaning myself, naturally--in the peanut gallery,” John put in. “Scrying? Scrying mirror? Sky-forged metal?"

“Ooh, I think I know this one, actually!” Mary exclaimed, sounding a little like a kid in school, the girl in the front row waving her hand like crazy because she finally knew a right answer. “I believe I do! John, remember the Lady Galadriel in _Lord of the Rings_? Remember when she poured water into her basin, or pool, or whatever it was—I don’t quite remember--and it showed her and Frodo pictures? That was scrying, and the basin became her scrying mirror. It’s magical searching, and you could use a bowl like hers, or a regular mirror, or Rupert’s thing that broke into umpteen-zillion pieces, anything that reflects, really. Sky-forged metal is metal from meteors, and it’s meant to be powerful, magical, because it’s the stuff of stars.”

“Perfectly said, my dear,” Rupert told her. “I could not have explained better.”

Mary grinned, blushing a little.

“But yours broke,” Tony said. “Not the strongest star-stuff that ever fell to earth.”

“Not that sort of strength,” Rupert explained, setting the sheet of stone into Tony’s hands. “What do you feel?”

After about three seconds Tony all-but-dropped the mirror-piece. Fast. Then wiped his hands hard on his jeans. “It’s cold. Really cold. And kinda like a tuning fork, if you’d put the end of the tuning fork against your temple, and your whole head turned into this giant ball of humming.”

“If you shove ear buds up your nose and open your mouth, your head becomes a speaker.” John caught their looks. “Apropos of nothing.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Mary said and linked her arm with his.

“This mirror was very old and very powerful,” Rupert went on, “Existing in the Watchers’ Treasure Vaults for centuries.”

“Until Loki blew it to pieces like a bag of potato chips,” Tony said. "Make that crisps, if you’d prefer.”

“Essentially,” Rupert agreed. “It worked, in that it showed Loki something—a rather precise location, if I happened to hazard a guess. It was less than successful in that this mirror was originally a tool designed to boost the abilities of marginally-talented magic users, magicians by rote, not by gift, which describes a quite remarkable number of former Watchers. For someone like Loki…”

“Who’s basically made up fifty per cent magic and fifty per cent sexiness…” Tony put in. The other four blinked at him.

“Quite,” Anthea continued, after the awkward pause. “It became like the Worm Ouroboros, devouring its tail, feeding upon itself, cycling and cycling, growing and growing until it blew apart.” The sorceress (and facilitator) actually looked distressed. “Rupert, it didn’t…”

“He’s out there,” Tony insisted. “Your fucking mirror may have blasted him to parts unknown, but Loki’s out there. So is Sherlock,” he added, just to be a good guy, for John’s benefit.

“Which brings us back to our original question,” Rupert put in, “Of where the bleeding hell could they actually have gone to?”

“Um…” Tony said after another pause, less embarrassed-slash-disbelieving, more just plain sad. “Does it autosave?”

“Beg pardon?” Rupert asked.

“Oh, I see what you mean!” John put in. “It’s like when I’d be working on my blog, and I’d get up for a cuppa, but Sherlock would have unplugged my laptop at some point hours before, because of course all the electricity in the flat belongs exclusively to him…” He said this with unmistakable fondness. “I’d come back from brewing my tea to find the computer completely shut off, but knowing Sherlock, I’d set it to autosave my work every minute. So my immortal words rarely got lost, despite what he got up to.”

“And it’s humming,” Tony said. He started to pace, not the easiest thing in the confines of a motorhome, even a large one. “It’s humming like a motherfucker. It’s on, dammit, I know it is! So, what we do is this—locate the signal it’s emitting, fix on the signal, and get to them.”

“By strapping on our skis or snowshoes and slushing off into the night?” Anthea snarked. “Forgive me for excreting upon your enthusiasm, Mr. Stark, but the snow outside is now well past a foot deep, with more steadily falling, and without electric lights or visible moon or stars, it’s dark as the bowels of Annwn.”

“A common Gallo-Brythonic word that means, literally, 'Underworld,'” Rupert put in, informatively.

Tony felt all the hope just drain out of him. “Yeah. Crush our optimism with some ugly reality, why don’t you?” And, okay, he had his suit, but not only was it his light suitcase-suit, it was his ultra-ultra-light smaller-suitcase-suit. He and Loki were only hitting the U.K. for a spot of government-mandated archaeology, why should he need a suit, anyway?

Which was to say it would have been fine for zooming through the skies over London, but it was so neither engineered nor road-tested for shitloads of steadily-falling heavy wet snow.

Looking at the problem, he saw only five options: one, zoom out to a town with a working landline, call out the posse—Thor (because you can’t beat a giant, flying Norse god who’s also a doting big brother in that kind of situation) and Kurt (because he was so damn comforting, and also handy for teleporting into tight spaces); two, crash and burn in the malfunctioning suit on the way to civilization, resulting in a far less positive outcome; three, basically the same as two, only occurring on the way to finding Sherlock and Loki; four, ditto for two and three, only crash occurs trying to bring home the lost lambs. The ultra-ultra suit just wasn’t made to hold up in excess of three hundred pounds, much less fly in inclement weather, whatever his good intentions--good intentions not holding much water in the face of the laws of physics and engineering; five, render humanitarian aid, again keeping fingers thoroughly crossed in hopes of not crashing and (probably) burning.

“Fuck,” Tony snapped.

John looked at him sympathetically. “You brought the wrong suit, didn’t you? I saw the suitcase. It looks… er… lightish.”

Tony ran through his five scenarios for them. Everyone agreed it wasn’t worth chancing—if Tony crashed, with the snow and no reception (Anthea revealed she also had possession, in her caravan, of a short-wave radio and a satellite phone, both of which--she'd already tried them--were proving just as useless as their multiple cell phones). Even Tony’s StarkPhone, which ought to have worked on the moon, had proved to be shit. When he switched it on, along with the total lack of signal, he got disembodied voices, almost too faint to hear, murmuring uncannily in numerous languages.

It creeped him out so badly he immediately turned the phone off again. What the hell had that been?

“The voices of Annwn,” Anthea said, with a smile so knife-edged Tony couldn’t tell if she was serious, or fucking with him, or what. “No aid from that quarter.”

So, if Tony wrecked his suit, along with it being total crapola for him (potentially fatal crapola, at that), until the snow went away, the rest of them were up shit creek with no canoe—all communications down and the motorhomes undriveable in the current blizzardy conditions. That Mycroft might check on them eventually was lovely, but didn’t exactly improve the life expectancies of either Loki or Sherlock.

Rupert returned to the kitchenette and began (of course) to brew tea, plugging in the electric kettle, measuring loose leaves into a round brown teapot. “Apologies,” he said, with a slight smile. “I don’t mean to seem heartless. The ritual helps me think.”

After a minute he continued, “Tony, you mentioned Loki’s good friend… The blue man?”

He totally hadn’t said Kurt was blue, but… okay.

“It made me consider…” The kettle boiled. Rupert poured water over the leaves in the pot, put on the lid and set it aside to steep. The motorhome began to smell like bergamot, the way the penthouse often did. Earl Grey tea, then. Loki’s favorite.

Sometimes Tony would have sworn his fiancé entirely subsisted on giant cups of the stuff (Loki’s designated tea mug, given to him by Pepper, was the size of a cereal bowl, apple green with a fancy crown on the side, Pep had a matching one in pink for her coffee), each cup with a large splash of goat’s milk. That, and the occasional glass (never more than one) of chardonnay.

Loki got upset when Tony teased him about it—his crown-cup and his daily gallons of tea and his slightly girly alcoholic-beverage-of-choice, meaning no harm whatsoever, only giving him shit.

Loki had stood on his dignity. “Yes, yes, Anthony, yet another instance of my vile _ergi_ ways. I shall go to my brother’s to remove them from your presence for this evening. He and Happy are to watch _Downton Abbey_ and we left Lady Mary in a troubling predicament. Expect me late. The children are not to stay up past their bedtime. They may come down to say good night to me, if they will.”

“Nothing about your ways are vile, you drama prince,” Tony had said to the already-closed elevator door. “I love your fucking ways.”

He’d decided to introduce the kids to monster trucks in Loki’s absence. They’d been fascinated, though Jöri had said once, “I can actually feel my brain shrinking as I watch this." When he’d brought them down to Thor’s for goodnights, Hela had declaimed what she’d seen to her _Pabbi_ in the style of an epic poem, Fen had called out “Monster Trucks!” and Loki had come home with them, leaving Lady Mary in the lurch to solve her own problems.

“Honest to the gods, Lok,” Tony said that night from the bed, as his fiancé was getting into his nightclothes. “I was only joking. There’s nothing wrong with you whatsoever, _Prinsinn af hjarta mínu_.”

“Very good pronunciation, Tony. You improve greatly.” Loki paused to pull on his emerald green silk pj’s—the ones Tony called his Pajamas of Splendor. The thing was, Loki only wore them when he was well and truly depressed. “Only, if we tell the truth, there are so many, many things. So many, many things, my love."

After the lights were out he’d held Tony in his arms so sweetly, and so tenderly, it was nearly painful.

“How are we going to make this right, Rupert?” Tony asked. “We have to make it right.”

“I considered what you said about Loki’s friend, and the subject of teleportation. Perhaps, since it’s where the trouble began, we might bring things round full circle to set them right again. If we are able to fix their location, I believe… I’m no adept, but think I ought to be able to send two, with some items of comfort for our lost ones. Also an item that might aid the mission."

 _Shit_ , Tony thought. He’d momentarily forgotten the mission.

“It will be a one way street,” Rupert cautioned. “I can’t bring you back again, and I cannot accompany you, much as I wish I could. Neither can Morgana, who will need to help with the magical end of things.”

“Look, will you just call me Anthea? Is it really too much?” She rooted through a drawer until she found a pack of cigarettes, slightly crushed, shook one out and lighted it with a snap of her fingers.

“I am no longer able to calculate…” She took a long drag, releasing the smoke through her nose in two thin streams. “How much Mycroft owes me at this point. First my Louboutins, now this. However that stands, naturally I will help. Do you think I’d abandon my darling boy?”

 _Uh… that would be my darling boy, wouldn't it?_ Tony thought. Provided she meant Loki—she hadn’t really seemed to care for Sherlock all that particularly.

“Then there remains only this,” Rupert said. From the narrow closet he took a thick leather tube about the height of Tony’s chest. Tony had even asked about it earlier, and been told it contained ordnance maps of the Beacons.

He guessed somebody had been playing Pinocchio with him.

Rupert released the three clips that held on its metal cap, and pulled out a sword. A “shouldn’t you totally be in a museum?” kind of sword, with a large ruby in the pommel and delicate engravings down the blade. It looked as if it had been forged in elf-fire under a full moon by fucking Elrond the Half-Elven, Lord of goddamn Rivendell.

“Wow,” John said, “ _That’s_ a weapon.”

“You said it,” Tony agreed.

Rupert handled the sword beautifully, of course, the same way Kurt (who could easily fence, simultaneously, with both hands and his tail), handled that kind of thing, with the graceful, easy balance of a natural swordsman.

“Okay, Inigo Montoya,” Tony said, “Wanna tell us what that is, when it’s not being an ordnance map?”

“Is it Excalibur? I'll bet it’s Excalibur!” Mary said. She looked a little star-struck.

Rupert shook his head. “No, Mary, but it slew a dragon once. This is the sword Ascalon, and it was once the chosen blade of England’s patron, St. George.” He smiled suddenly in a way that made him not only look younger, but light years beyond mischievous. “Whoever wields it in the end, I’d very much appreciate if they brought it back again unscathed. It’s on a relatively… ah… unofficial loan from the British Museum.”

“Rupert Giles!” Anthea actually laughed. “Who’d have thought you had it in you?”

Rupert actually smiled back at her. “Quite a number of people, really.” He laid the sword reverently on the bed, then rubbed his hands together. “Now, tea! And after, we’ll get started.”

* * *

The one thing he had to be thankful for, Sherlock thought, was that since his companion glowed like a fistful of lightsticks at a rave, he didn’t have to sit in a dark, chilly cave feeling put out with the world in general. He could feel put out whilst in a chilly cave, enjoying excellent, though slightly greenish, lighting conditions.

It gave him ample opportunity to glare at his so-called parent.

No, Sherlock would take that back. His parent. He’d observed too many signs not to take the man? Creature? Being? Alien? at his word. There were a million unconscious things both of them did, that must be hard-coded into his genetics, because he’d never learned them from this man… person… Loki… whom he hadn’t seen in his life up until two days ago.

Except…

Except…

Perhaps not so much hadn't _seen_ as hadn't _remembered_?

Sherlock pulled away quite suddenly to his Mind Palace, where a small, discrete alarm-bell seemed to ring, a distant version of the bedside clock he’d owned when he was a schoolboy. The one he’d taken apart, eventually, to catch a closer look at its component workings. Sherlock remembered watching the little flywheel’s almost frantic tilting, the myriad toothed gears, the springs.

He’d put the clock back together, after, and it was nearly good as new, except that it no longer rang.

He’d shared his rooms at Pindar House, throughout his public school career, with an over-tall ginger-haired muppet named Seb St. Ives, who was known, amongst other things, for his kindness to others and for actually staying awake in chapel on a daily basis. He might as well have had the words “Future Head Boy” writ large in indelible ink upon his high, noble brow. He smiled more often than any person Sherlock had ever seen. It was nearly intolerable.

“I say, Holmes, I can fix it for you, I think,” St. Ives told him, almost diffidently. He was always perfectly decent to Sherlock, despite the fact Sherlock consistently acted like a complete twat toward him in return, stealing his Biros and notepaper and even his revisions, when he thought he could get away with it—until St. Ives started to write them out in ancient Greek, for which the other boy possessed an unnatural talent, whilst Sherlock's was weak.

St. Ives was said to receive higher marks for his extra effort. He always went home loaded with prizes at end of term.

Sherlock, on the other hand, received mostly reprimands. The Headmaster, it seemed, wrote home to his father weekly.

He suspected they’d been made to share rooms so that St. Ives would rub off on him. So that he might catch whatever St. Ives had, like a case of the measles.

Sherlock sometimes thought the thing he hated most about Seb St. Ives, was how difficult it was to hate him. He generally made a point to despise everyone on principle: other people were, almost invariably, ignorant, blind and annoying.

His great triumph against St. Ives, however, was when (as a bit of mischief) he managed to pilfer from the boy’s lock-box the gold medal his elder sister had won in the Olympics, and given to him to keep, to remember her.

“It’s all I have!” St. Ives had shouted in Sherlock’s face, nearly spitting, which was unattractive and unpleasant, as he trembled with grief and rage. His wide, normally pale-green eyes had gone close to obsidian with anger.“You bastard, it’s all I have!”

That was the first time ever the words appeared, white letters, in a pleasing font, a gentle cloud of precise information floating around St. Ives’s face.

St. Ives wasn’t, strictly speaking, a St. Ives at all, the words informed him—or he was, but not by the paternal line. It was his mum’s maiden name, meaning...

The Mr. Bannister Seb went to on hols was not his uncle, most definitely, but his guardian? Protector? Watcher? Something complicated, anyway, that wasn’t quite clear. The tall, angular and very beautiful (despite her quantities of ginger hair) young woman, winner of the medal, who came to see the boy every Visiting Day without fail, was just as definitely not his sister at all.

“I’m not the bastard, St. Ives,” Sherlock sneered. “You are.”

St. Ives’s hands curled tightly into fists, and he shook harder than ever. “Is that what you think, Holmes? Not only are you just as much a bastard as I am, but your mum is a boy!”

“Have you seen my mum?” Sherlock scoffed. “I have observed her in a swimming costume on many occasions, and she is clearly in no way masculine. Even if she’d been made into a girl, when she wasn't one originally, they’d have done a better job of it, not given her breasts that were overlarge, and sagging.”

“That’s not your mum,” St. Ives answered, with icy loftiness. “That’s the lady who was made to adopt you. She didn’t even wish to. Your… Mycroft made her, and your dad, too!”

“You’re lying. You’re a bloody liar!” Sherlock screamed back at him. “How could you possibly know anything?”

But St. Ives, having come to the end of his verbal arguments, simply shot out one of his ridiculously long arms (with an equally ridiculously large fist at the end of it) punched Sherlock, quite hard, in the nose and stalked from their rooms.

He returned five minutes later with Matron in tow, and a sandwich-bag of ice in one hand.

“I tripped over my own enormous feet and hit my nose on the chair,” Sherlock said. “It scarcely bled a bit.”

“Balderdash!” Matron exclaimed, passed him the bag and shook her head. It was said she’d been a Matron for over thirty years, and could detect a boy’s lies faster and more accurately than a polygraph test. “Shake hands like gentlemen, make up, and we’ll say no more of this.”

Sherlock could see St. Ives’s eyes catch hold of the glimmer of gold atop his neatly made bed, and the long, three-coloured ribbon.

“It had only fallen against the wall,” Sherlock said (which was an utter lie—he’d hidden the medal behind the wainscoting, for only a magpie’s reasons, that it was bright, and interesting, and it would hurt St. Ives to lose it). "I found it at once, when I looked."

The other boy saw the lie for what it was, but smiled and shook his hand nonetheless. “Pax, then, Holmes. Sorry about your… fall. And thanks for... finding the medal. I could never face Em again if I lost it.”

He clearly meant, _Take anything else, only not that, I beg of you._

“Pax, St. Ives. Let’s not make enemies of one another.”

“Very well, then, gentlemen,” Matron said. “Do better, both of you.” She was doubtless a good woman, through and through, devout and simple in her ways (though with secrets and lies of her own, to which she would never admit). The two of them unnerved her, Sherlock saw, in a part of her mind she’d never before visited.

“So, that’s that,” St. Ives said, after Matron had gone. “Look, Holmes, if you need Biros or paper or anything, ask. I just like to know what I have on hand, that’s all.”

“From time to time I enjoy being devious,” Sherlock told him. “It keeps me on my toes. It isn’t actually personal, St. Ives.”

St. Ives laughed. “You’re quite an odd boy, Holmes. I find I enjoy that about you. Call me Seb, if you'd like, when we’re on our own.”

“I might,” Sherlock admitted. “When we’re on our own. I see now you aren’t completely useless, like the others.”

St. Ives—Seb—laughed again. “Would it surprise you, Sherlock, to hear we’ll end up as friends? I’ll have Mr. Bannister send extra Biros and paper, and I could help you with your Greek, if you like. It’s just a knack, you could easily learn it, clever as you are.”

Sherlock hadn’t told Seb he could use his Christian name, though he found he didn’t mind a bit, really. Seb was right, he knew—they would be friends.

Seb was the only person who’d ever called him clever, in a way that wasn’t meant to wound him. And he knew Seb hadn’t been praying (despite his ridiculously dutiful chapel attendance), when he shut his eyes and set his hand atop Sherlock’s clock, restoring it to cheerfully ringing life, albeit with a different sound to its bell.

He’d been doing something else entirely. Some might even say something contrary to prayer. But that would remain unspoken between them.

 

“I am ludicrously full,” Seb complained cheerfully, on their way indoors. Though the college grounds blazed with autumn, the air remained warm, still perfect for Visiting Day picnics such as they’d recently enjoyed.

They were a month into the Second Form at Pindar House. Sherlock, having just turned thirteen, might have been a Third Form boy--he had, as their Housemaster informed him, ample intelligence to join the upper year, it was in the area of social skills he'd been found sorely lacking. He would have to remain where he was and keep Seb company, though Seb must endure months yet of being merely twelve.

Their long-ago First Form Year when, fresh out of Primary School, they’d joined the college, and Sherlock was a week away from eleven, while precocious Seb was only ten, seemed eons and eons in the past.

Seb almost fell off his bed laughing when Sherlock told him of their Housemaster’s words.

“Really, Sherlock? Truly?” His bright green eyes nearly teared with glee. “I simply cannot fathom what he meant by that remark!”

Sherlock had perched on the foot-rail of his friend’s bed, feet on the coverlet, regarding (just a little sourly) Seb’s mirthful face. He wished Seb could teach him the trick of being as he was, how to move through life so gracefully, liked and admired by all. It wasn’t that Seb didn’t work hard—he most certainly did, Sherlock saw that every day. It was only that his hard work always seemed to have such good results. He was so immensely likable.

Whereas Sherlock moved through life too sarcastic, too angry, far, far too clever for his own good—and often desperately lonely, when Seb wasn’t near.

His friend appeared to others as a fine, thoughtful and dedicated scholar. Sherlock appeared as a bloody know-it-all who never knew when to shut his gob.

“I like you as you are, Sherlock.” Seb sat up, looking back at him thoughtfully. “Just as you are. Remember that, won’t you? You don’t need to be me. One me is quite enough for this world, and you, Sherlock Holmes are always so surprising. It’s a wonderful trait.”

“I wish you were my brother, Seb,” Sherlock said. “In place of bloody Mycroft.”

“You are my brother, Sherlock. Remember that, won’t you?” Seb laughed again, suddenly. “Your family have the most horrid names! However did your parents think of them?”

“My Christian name’s actually William,” Sherlock confessed. “William Sherlock Scott Holmes. Scott is for the failed Antarctic explorer. Mycroft is Mervyn, though, so I see why he doesn’t use it.”

“Mervyn Mycroft Holmes? What’s his third name? It’s meant to be a saint’s name, you know, not an explorer.”

“Raleigh,” Sherlock answered. “My parents are free-thinkers, and prefer explorers to saints.”

“Mine’s Petroc,” Seb told him. “Rather a boring saint, a patron of Cornwall, known for having an abbey, or such, not even any decent miracles, like St. Christina fluttering into the rafters to escape the stench of human corruption beneath.”

“Actual human corruption?” Sherlock asked, suddenly interested. “Corpses?”

“I don’t believe so,” Seb answered. “I believe it’s only the usual. Sin, I suppose. When I stop at Mr. Bannister’s his mum tells me the most peculiar stories. I think she may actually be clinically mad, but quite interesting. I wonder what my sins would smell of, if I could smell them?”

“Repugnant body odor,” Sherlock said, grinning wickedly. “I don’t actually believe in sin. I believe in bad people doing good things and good people doing bad things, and everything else just muddled up in between.”

“You’re very likely right,” Seb told him, after a moment’s thought. “People are quite complicated, and sometimes very weird.” He reached out, curling his fingers lightly round Sherlock’s ankle, his skin warm against Sherlock’s bare skin.

“I most likely won’t say it again,” he said, after another pause, “But I love you, Sherlock, my brother. You know that, right? It's said all anyone needs in this world is one friend. If you have that, you have everything.”

Sherlock’s eyes stung, though there was no water in them. His voice came out funny, as if it was suddenly trying to change with no prior warning. “I love you also, Seb." He paused, hoping Seb would understand what he meant. "As well as I am able.”

“As well as you are able, Sherlock,” Seb answered, “Is enough for me.”

 

Seb was laughing and merry on the way back from their picnic.

“I may very well be sick!” he moaned with complete cheerfulness, belying himself by throwing the occasional cartwheel on the soft emerald grass as they went, his striped tie flying up into his face. He performed cartwheels quite well, despite his ridiculous height, as he did most athletic things.

“Wasn’t it clever of Em to bring a picnic for us, when it’s still so lovely outdoors? She’s not the most marvelous cook, but the things she makes always taste of home. I don’t believe there’s anything she can’t at least do passably well.”

 _She brought the picnic because this is your last time to share one_ , Sherlock thought. _She’s frightened, Seb, and she is leaving you, though she doesn’t like to_.

The words floating around Seb’s beautiful sister’s (mum’s) face were complicated and strange. Sherlock couldn’t quite make out which ones made him more uneasy—the ones he didn’t understand, or the ones he did.

That, and the fact that lovely Em had very much changed from what she had been, a charming, bright-natured young woman who wore pretty, flowered frocks to Visiting Days and contained her vast amounts of curling ginger hair in a simple plait. The change coincided exactly with the Visiting Day Seb’s sister (mum) had shown up in an extremely severe tweed suit, her Pre-Raphaelite hair tightly pinned.

Hovering over and around her tight-pinned head like a halo, Sherlock read: _For Seb. For Seb. I do it for Seb. My family shall not harm him. **They** have promised me to Watch._

Sherlock pondered the meaning of the capital “W” in Watch.

This visit, despite her radiant face, Em St. Ives resembled the Guv’nor of a girl’s Detention Centre.

As Seb stuffed himself with expressions of ecstasy, his sister (mum) spoke amusingly of a trip for her work to Jamaica, and even sang for them, in her velvety, low-pitched voice, a bit of a song by a man named Bob Marley, called “ _No Woman No Cry_ ,” promising to send the two of them a mix tape.

She’d embraced them both goodbye, holding each a long while instead of shaking hands as one was meant to. Sherlock rubbed his face into the scratchy tweed of her suit, not wanting to let her go until she was actually going, taking long strides despite the picnic basket in her hand, the soft grass, and her high-heeled court shoes.

He knew the tape would never arrive (though it did, posted from Heathrow Airport immediately before her departure), that he would never see her again (which he did not) and that he would never love another woman as he loved her (melodramatic, yes—he was thirteen, after all—but accurate enough).

“Oh, look!” Seb said, as they crossed over the threshold into Pindar House. “It’s the dark-haired man. The relative of yours? The one who watches you sometimes at cricket matches?”

“Why should anyone care to watch me?” Sherlock answered crossly. "I'm shit at cricket." Which was true enough. It wasn't that he lacked athletic ability, it was just that he hated cricket, as he hated all organized sport.

He’d caught only a glimpse of the man in question, the hem of his long dark coat swirling out as he turned the corner of the staircase—the staircase that led upward to their corridor.

“I wonder what he wants.” Seb said cheerfully, trotting up the stairs in the dark man’s footsteps. He grinned. “Perhaps he’s actually an emissary from your true parents, come to restore you to your rightful kingdom?”

“Maybe you’re a total git, and I’d be just as totally justified in pushing you down the stairs,” Sherlock answered.

They entered their room, laughing like ordinary boys—only to find the man already there, seated upon Seb’s desk chair.

“You aren’t meant to be here,” Seb told him politely. “I'm afraid I’ll need to call Matron.”

“You will not do so, Sebastian Henry Petroc St. Ives,” the man said, “Because I ask that you do not, as a boon. William Holmes…” He rose from Seb’s chair, tall, almost like a giant, the tallest man Sherlock could ever remember seeing face-to-face, though part of that may have been that he was also very, very thin. Not bony, but… Sherlock searched for a word, and _lithe_ was the best he could manage. He had extremely fair skin, not like the skin of an albino, but like moonlight and starlight combined, and vividly green eyes.

His clothes and his hair were what conveyed the sense of darkness—inky dark, except for an emerald scarf looped round his neck, and almost unbearably elegant. Every single thing about him seemed almost unbearably elegant, from his shiny black shoes to his sleek, jet-black hair, which made it hard to look long in his direction.

Suddenly, Seb’s knees hit the floor. When he spoke, he sounded shaken, his earlier silliness entirely fled. “Forgive me, sir, that I didn’t know you at once.”

“Abase yourself not before me, youngling,” the man said, lifting Seb easily to his feet. “I have only come to bring a gift to your Shield-Brother. Is it known to you, William, that today is your Naming Day? The fourteenth in that count, a day of note?”

“I’m Sherlock. No one calls me William. And I’m thirteen. Get your facts straight. And who are you, anyway?”

“No one.” The man shrugged his exquisitely-coated shoulders. “A wanderer. A maker of cunning things. An emissary of Myrddin _ap_ Madog and _Prinsinn_ Loki Friggason _af_ Ásgarði, who gave you life.”

His shadow fell across Sherlock’s face and it was like breathing in fire and swimming in electrical currents that somehow refused to kill him, though they easily might have done so. Sherlock hung suspended, wavering, in that dangerous half-light, his pulse beating in his throat, breath catching in his chest, terrified and exhilarated, all the more so when the man’s fabulously long, slender hands cupped his face.

He wept, the boy saw, a single crystalline tear tracking slowly down from one brilliant eye. _“O cariad_ ,” the man murmured—if he was a man, he scarcely seemed human. “ _O hjarta hjarta minn.”_

He bent low and kissed Sherlock’s forehead, his cool, soft lips lingering on the boy’s flushed skin. “My best-belovéd Sigvarðr _ap_ Myrddin.”

He stepped back, hands pressed together beneath his chin, like the jewel-coloured saints or angels in the chapel windows—though Sherlock knew perfectly well he wasn’t either of those things.

And with that gesture he just… disappeared.

Ever after, Sherlock tried to convince himself that perhaps he’d taken too much sun during their picnic, that he’d hallucinated everything, but he never could. His mind wasn't made that way.

He flung himself down on Seb’s bed, weeping as he never had before or since, while the younger boy rubbed his back and said soothing things to him, nearly as distraught as he was.

After a time they both slept on the narrow bed, atop the covers, waking hours later in the full dark, though they couldn’t have said why what woke them.

They never spoke of their visitor again, even with his gift, the proof of the dark man’s existence, standing always in its place of honor on Sherlock’s desk.

They even remained friends, until their school-leaving. Sherlock didn’t see Seb after that, hadn’t seen him in thirty years, though Seb St. Ives had been the best friend he’d had, until John.

Perhaps Seb was too much like him, too close to the mystery-him who lived under his skin, that one who made him look thirty-five when he was really forty-eight, that sometimes made green fires dance on the tips of his fingers.

The one who let him survive a jump off a tall building--tall enough to kill him, anyway--when the oh-so-cunning plan he’d badgered poor Molly into helping concoct hadn’t bloody worked for toffee.

That stranger, Sigvarðr _ap_ Myrddin, who lived inside William Sherlock Scott Holmes’s skin.

The gift had been a microscope, his first, intricately and perfectly made, the lens so finely ground that, if angels had ever once danced on the heads of pins, a man certainly could have seen them through that perfect instrument.

His beautiful microscope. His treasure. The loveliest thing he’d owned, or would ever own, most likely.

His Rosebud, one might say.

He’d sold it to buy heroin and cocaine, for speedballing, when he was thirty-three, after holding on to his treasure for all that time, through a series of increasingly squalid flats, Mycroft forever nagging and pushing and prodding at him (every other person in his life having long since washed their hands of the whole bloody, humiliating mess), when all he wanted was for his idiot genius brain to shut off for five minutes and allow him to feel happy.

Was that truly so wrong, to desire five fleeting minutes of happiness?

The microscope had been the only thing he had left to give, and given it he had, if not happily, then at least willingly. He did have his priorities.

Newly flush, he presented the money to a handsome, prematurely-silvering bloke called Lestrade (he’d used quite another name for the transaction, but that information was, alas, lost to the Mind Palace).

Lestrade, being an undercover officer of the law (Drug Enforcement Administration), promptly handcuffed and arrested him.

A rather squiffy Lestrade had told him once (years later, and rather sanctimoniously, Sherlock thought), that even the worst of curses could turn to blessings in the end.

“And every cloud has a silver lining. Charming. Got it,” Sherlock sneered.

“You have,” Lestrade said, raising his mug of stout for emphasis, “What our American cousins call a 'sucky attitude,' my friend. Try to improve it, can’t you?”

"I'm not sure that I can," Sherlock muttered under his breath, shooting the Detective Inspector one of his finest, cat-eyed, evil looks.

John, seated next to Lestrade, laid his head on the bar and giggled—at the policeman, however, not at him, which was why John was his friend. Always, always his friend.

Swaying home from the bar, chatting about the details of a case he’d already half-forgotten, John had said suddenly, “Greg doesn’t mean badly, you know. He is your friend. He does like you.”

Sherlock reminded himself that by "Greg," John meant Lestrade.

“My only two, true friends,” Sherlock said, in a particularly stroppy mood. “Were Seb St. Ives, and you, John Watson.”

And somehow in the course of the evening, he told John everything, even though it made him sound mental.

After, John thought for a long while, Sherlock wondering if he was soon going to recommend medication--or perhaps had merely fallen asleep, as he sometimes did in the middle of things. John had no stamina and, ridiculously, insisted on sleeping a few hours out of every twenty-four.

Sherlock could never comprehend how he got by, wasting time in that fashion.

“Sherlock, you might think I’m mad,” John said at last, “But I’d like to show you something.” He crossed the room to switch on his laptop, calling up a handful of files. “Okay, here’s the first. It’s from Germany. Don’t say anything yet. A second one, also from Germany. The last of the three is from New York and looks like scenes from a high budget sci-fi action film, all flying aliens and superheroes. Well... you’ll see.”

Sherlock watched the films one by one, then again, then again, until finally John called an end to it, leaving the image of his dark man frozen on the screen, weighed down in chains, a muzzle bolted round his face, frozen resignation in his vivid eyes.

“His eyes are green,” Sherlock informed his friend. "Green."

John peered closer. “Very much so, I’d say.”

“Now observe.” Sherlock scrolled rapidly backward. “The old man--the scientist. The… what is he?”

“Archer, I suppose?” John snickered softly. “A bit Agincourt, wouldn't you think?”

“Blue eyes, John. Blue!” He scrolled more slowly through random frames, whichever showed the dark man’s eyes. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue.” The final muzzled image. “Green. It’s same as you saw, isn’t it?”

“No,” John said quietly. “It’s just, in Afghanistan I treated a number of soldiers with that look—panicked, ill, terrified, one might say. Most often they’d been captives, or been in fire-fights that wouldn’t end. It’s the way I felt when I had that Semtex strapped round my chest, wanting to make jokes to hide the fear. It’s often the look of someone who’s been tortured.” John shut the laptop gently. “You think that man might be your dad?”

“Possibly,” Sherlock answered, then, "I wish I knew. Why is it I only know the unimportant things, John?"

"Oh, I'd say you might--perhaps, if we really think--know one or two important things." John laid a hand on his shoulder. “Go to bed now, Sherlock. Don't be bloody stubborn, just get some rest. Call your brother in the morning. If anyone can look into it for you, he’d be the man.”

* * *

Sherlock rested his folded arms on his pulled-up knees, his forehead on his arms. That wasn’t so much a visit to his Mind Palace as it was a BBC Dramatic miniseries: _Sherlock Holmes's School Days_ , with added commentary from the cast.

When he raised his head again, he found Loki watching him, his body tucked into exactly the same position as Sherlock’s own.

“It was a kindness that you attempted,” Loki told him quietly, most likely because that was all the volume his tattered voice could produce. “You have my gratitude.”

He paused, studying Sherlock’s face with enormous intensity.

“You are loud in your thinking, as my belovéd Tony is. Perhaps because you are both men of force. I had no intent to perceive your thoughts, dearest son, but I knew not the strength just now, to close them away from my mind. Only know, it was not merely once and no more. On many nights I came to you, and each left you with a pleasant dream of being loved, and known. It was only as you waxed toward manhood you became less susceptible to glamours and illusions. The fourteenth is the chief of the Naming Days, the beginning of the passage from boyhood to man's estate. In my foolishness I wished to gift you with a token of myself, a thing I had created, such as I was never given at that age. I know now that was wrong and selfish of me. I never meant to harm you, dear one.”

Loki paused, watching him, his expression more difficult for Sherlock to read than any he'd ever seen. It came to him that, for all their noted similarities, how alien the (actual?) god of mischief could be--in his demeanor, his speech, his physicality. He was, in literal truth, exactly as he'd been in Sherlock's squashed-down, unadmitted memories, and different entirely. Not his father, as he'd told himself when he'd dared for brief instants, to think of the dark man at all, but not his mother, either.

Perhaps that's what had made him so angry, when he'd gone to Loki, expecting to meet a father--that Loki not only wasn't that, he was nothing whatsoever within Sherlock's experience, nothing he could explain or quantify.

Although--being as he was--he certainly might have.

He'd been angry because he'd been made, however undeliberately, to feel foolish and ignorant? Oh, yes, very pretty behavior, Sherlock.

“What does _Pabbi_ mean?” he asked. His voice sounded young, to his ears, and a little sad.

Loki wobbled as he slipped down from his stone perch. Without thinking, Sherlock reached out a hand to steady him.

“In our family,” he said, “Whatever other meanings it might have in other places, it the thing I am. You are my younglings, I am your _Pabbi_ , and each of you I hold equally dear. Not excluding you, treasured one.”

“You look different than that other time," Sherlock told him. "You sound different, also. In your speech.”

“They do say the river ever differs.” Loki sighed. “I feel surpassingly weary, my son.”

He smiled in gratitude as Sherlock put an arm around his waist, holding him up, feeling the hard shapes of Loki’s ribs and spine, the heat of his skin, the rapid flutter of his heart.

When Loki turned his face to the ceiling, the entire cavern flooded with green light. “Would you go down to the waters and seek the dragons, Sherlock? They warm unto awakening, yet lie still in quiet sleep.


	8. Sons and Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here be angst! Seriously.
> 
> Loki slips in and out of reality on a quest to discover what has become of the dragons. Sherlock is confused--and Loki is somewhat confused by Sherlock. We find out what happened to Odin while Loki ruled Asgard, and also, when he first escaped Castle Doom, what brought him to Tony.
> 
> And then, I made myself cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, what we've been dreading, with Baby Wilhelm, is here in the chapter. Not graphic, in terms of medical procedure, but difficult in terms of emotional content. For someone who has been through the loss of a child, it could very well be triggery. For anyone who gets weepy, this probably isn't the one to read at work.
> 
> Pen y Fan=the highest mountain in Wales.
> 
>  _Ddraig wen, ydych chi'n gwrando?_ =White dragon, are you listening?
> 
>  _Ddraig goch_ =red dragon
> 
>  _Cariad, bach_ =Welsh endearments, similar to darling or dear
> 
> Jori's " _Dragon Song_ " is, of course, _Puf , the Magic Dragon_ by Peter Yarrow and Leonard Lipton. I'm fairly certain all children believe a song can only be improved by the inclusion of their own names. I'm sure, as a wise parent, Loki knows better than to ever sing the last verse.
> 
> In the Marvel Movieverse, Laufey is depicted as Loki's biological father. In Norse Mythology, according to the _Prose Edda_ book _Gylfaginning_ , it says that Loki is the son of the _Jötunn_ Fárbauti, and that Laufey (or Nál) is his mother. For the purposes of this series, Laufey is Loki's _pabbi_ (as Loki is to the triplets), and his father... well, we'll find out.
> 
>  _Bannau Brycheiniog_ =Brecon Beacons. The poet Dylan Thomas lived in Swansea and environs, not very far (at least in American terms) from the Beacons.
> 
> Loki's "foolish film of badly flown aeroplanes" is better known to most of us simply as _Airplane_ (1980).
> 
> Michael Woods is a British historian who has hosted a number of documentaries, one of them being _The Story of Britain_.

“I don’t see any dragons,” Sherlock said. “Not that one expects to see dragons, ordinarily. Not on occasions when one is entirely sober. Or otherwise, actually.” His shoulders hunched, and he rubbed his long powerful hands together briskly, hoping to warm them, Loki guessed.

He never understood why mortals did that. It never seemed to work. At least, it had never worked for him. Perhaps it was yet another area in which the people of Midgard were so very different in their bodies from himself. Perhaps the small action brought to them a blessed burst of warmth, like a momentary fire, to strengthen their hearts against the chill.

Loki studied his son’s face and the lines of his body carefully, but Sherlock did not appear cheered in any way. He appeared quite peevish and, as it might be, disgusted.

Loki hoped it was not he who caused Sherlock’s ire.

“Are you very cold, my son?” Loki asked after a bit.

Sherlock turned his chilly gaze upon him. He had not the least mark of the _Jötnar_ upon him, and yet he carried the ice of Jötunnheimr in his eyes.

Loki wondered what his son would say were he to unbecome before him, falling into the form of his birth. What would be Sherlock's reaction to his marked blue skin, his crimson eyes?

Sherlock, too, had been born with irises of blood-shade (he could hardly have escaped them, as Loki’s and Myrddin’s—had Loki but known—shared the same hue), though, like Myrddin’s, the whites of Sherlock’s eyes had been pale as milk).

What—might all the gods help him—might Sherlock think, were he to see Loki’s black claws, and his twisted, obsidian horns? Sherlock could scarcely bear him as he was, that monster form might well send him from undisguised disgust headlong into untrammeled madness.

“A warm coat would not go amiss,” Sherlock said after a long silence. “We seem to have gone out somewhat underdressed.”

Loki felt his mouth quirk, almost against his will, into a grin. He enjoyed his son’s dry humor. Yet he felt so very cold himself he could scarcely think, and why should that be so? He was _Jötunn_ , the chill should hold no power over him, especially a chill that might be counted as warmth by _Jötnar_ standards. No ice rimed this cavern, no snow lay upon the lake’s shores. Its waters, although frigid, remained liquid.

It must be this foolish illness with which he had been overwhelmed, dousing his fire, melting his ice, leaving him in a sort of miserable Helheimr between, in which he ached horribly, his mind would not work as was its wont, he shook and felt weak, dull, weighted down by his own limbs yet disconnected from all around him and, above all, very much afraid.

Sherlock felt badly frightened also, Loki knew, though he would never admit to being so.

“I don’t suppose you’d have a nicotine patch or so on you?” his son asked. “No? Can’t think why I asked, really. Don’t supposed they smoke in Asgard.”

Loki ducked his head, glancing downward. His son’s voice twisted the name of the Golden Realm to something despicable, as if he ought to feel deepest remorse for having achieved his manhood amidst such vileness.

Well, it was vile, oft-times, as Loki ought well to know. Why should he carry the blame that it was so? What had it to do with him?

“Pipes,” Loki replied softly, “Are now and then smoked. We know no aid to stop one from the desire to do so. One either smokes, or does not.”

The look Sherlock gave him was difficult to decipher, even when he delved into the vastness of his son’s thoughts. No space there, he observed, in Sherlock’s mind held a nook or cranny that would admit to fear, though he had often, often been afraid.

He knew fear of humiliation, fear of being shown up for a fraud—such accusation as had, upon one brutal occasion, falsely been been laid at his door—fear of the loss of his physical strength, of his own intellectual superiority…

Lately, of losing the two or three he held dear, having those few used against him yet again, hurt, taken—or worse still.

Amidst the terror floated a plethora of thoughts too terrifying for Sherlock ever to consciously complete, even within the safety of his head. _What if…? What if John… What if I don’t…? What if I lose…? What if I can’t…?_

And then the most terrifying, which Sherlock asked himself over and over again. _What if I’m simply not clever enough?_

Loki stared at him, trying to untangle the jumble inside his son’s head, so similar to his own in its breadth and height, so unlike in the ways it held what it knew, the ways it kept the flashing jewels of learning and experience strung, the way the strings interwove, the way new knowledge was pursued.

How in all the Realms had this being, without Craft or _seiðr_ , without magic of any discernible sort, lastly without the deep wells of feeling he and Myrddin had shared, sprung from the mingling of their essences? Had they two been too dissimilar in the stuff of their corporeal forms to make a child between them that could be born whole?

Loki wanted to beg Sherlock’s pardon on his knees, that his son had been made in love, been made in devotion, and yet been born so broken. And yet Sherlock would not understand, or see it in himself. He believed himself whole.

Alarmed, yet again, by the silence within himself, Loki pressed both hands, spread flat, against his belly, calling out within his mind, _Oh, Wilhelm, Wilhelm, son of my belovéd, hear my cry! Oh, speak to me, my sweetling, if you will._

“Whatever are you doing?” Sherlock asked him, sounding, if not nervous, then rather agitated.

Loki pressed his palms together, taking in slow breaths to relieve his own distress. “It is your small brother, Sherlock. For many hours now I have heard not his voice.”

His short burst of strength, siphoned from Rupert's mirror, gave out entirely in that instant. Loki sat suddenly in the dark gritty sand and gravel that spread across the shores of the vast underground lake. The waters moved in eddies of violet and green-black beneath the strong green light that shone all about them.

“I sold it,” Sherlock said suddenly, in a cold, clipped voice.

“What is that, my son? I beg pardon of you.” Loki turned stiffly. He felt as if he floated far above himself, bound to his body only by a long and fragile cord that might snap at any moment.

“The microscope. The one you gave me. I sold it.”

“It was a gift,” Loki said. Though the sand felt chilly through his flimsy clothing, he wanted to lie down upon it, for his head was light, though at the same time thumped as with a thousand battle drums. He felt a desperate thirst, yet he feared to drink of the lake, lacking the strength to purify its dark waters.

“A gift, freely given, Sherlock, holds no further ties to the giver. When I crafted the instrument, I had hoped it would mean much to you, that it would be cherished, taken as a token of my care. Yet that was only my hope, not your obligation. I realize now I myself could mean nothing to you, and therefore my gift would be seen as equally without meaning. I only regret that it was not, at the very least, useful.” He gazed at his son, at his bright, cold eyes and his watchful face. “I hope the gold you gained for it was of use, at least.”

Loki had not meant to sound bitter, but he did, and felt shame in himself. “Forgive me, Sherlock,” he said. “I should not have spoken so. Truly, my gift was yours to do with as you would.”

He did lie upon the sand then, finding it cold as he feared, yet not caring overmuch. The great dome above him twinkled, as with a million stars, though Loki knew those stars were false, mere bits of reflective mineral embedded within the faces of the Beacons’ dense, red-black, ironstone bones. It felt pleasant to nearly drowse, to let his weary mind drift out on the currents of half-conceived imaginings, as the now-unladen barges moved gently on the languid currents. Where had the dragons gone to? Had they awoken betimes? Did they conceal themselves somewhere within the shadows of this cavern, biding their time and plotting with cold, saurian brains?

“Sherlock, it is… It is…” Loki began. His thoughts moved with treacleish slowness. He again took a measured breath in an attempt to marshal them, and dipped his fingers into the cold, still waters, feeling the salts, the lime, the fragments of copper and iron suspended therein.

Only, not so still, truly. Though his bones ached from the chill, Loki pushed his hand deeper beneath the surface. There it was, a current like a light breeze, the tickle of tiny, blind, nearly transparent fish—entirely unused to intruders in these lightless waters.

Loki sent his consciousness after them, further, and further, to the whole chain of lakes that lay in utter darkness beneath the seemingly limitless strata of stones. Onward, deeper and deeper he followed, breathing in water like a fish, through terrains blacker and colder, past endless forgotten treasures of ancient times, guarded by no-longer-remembered gods, menaced by monsters that might once, or never, have been.

Deeper still, into the unseen spine of the earth, where nothing watched and only quiet reigned. Who had hidden the dragons here, so deep in the heart of Pen y Fan? Was it Myrddin, with his powerful earth-magic, so different from Loki’s own _seiðr_ , which was the magic of fire, light, illusion and transformation, the magic of weaving and unweaving. Could he unweave the earth here, just as he so deftly unwove the barriers between Realms, slipping in a heartbeat between the ends of their raveled threads?

It was a question worth consideration.

All lay barren here, and so dreadfully cold. So frigid, and an awful weight pressed onto Loki's chest. Pressed and pressed. A terrible sensation, as if from being stabbed, and gods how it hurt, and then…

And then…

A warmth came to him that felt nearly intolerable, after the chill. He had flown to another place than the cavern of cold and pain. The sand on which he lay had become softer, finer, trickling easily between Loki’s fingers when he took a measure into his hand.

A gentle hand brushed the sodden hair back from his brow, “ _Ddraig wen_ ,” a familiar voice said. “ _Ddraig wen, ydych chi'n gwrando?_ ”

Despite the heat, a peaceful sleepiness came over him. “Yes, I am listening,” Loki murmured. “Only not now, Myrdd. Not just now, my _ddraig goch_. I believe I am dreaming, and would not be wakened.”

“Yes, _bach_ , you are dreaming,” Myrddin affirmed.

Something slipped along Loki’s cheek, at once rigid and tender, silken and sharp-edged. With some effort, Loki raised a hand, tracing his fingertips over a spike-crowned head the shape of an arrow’s tip, down a long, long slender column of neck, to the mobile, graceful buttress of a wing, the wing’s membrane soft as baby’s skin.

“Oh, I know you!” he murmured, though that wasn’t strictly true. He knew the dragon-scent of ash, fire and smoke. His questing fingers knew also, so well, the satiny, crisp curve of scales beneath their tips.

For some moments, Loki became confused, thinking Jöri had come to him to cuddle, as he sometimes did, in dragon form, twining his sinuous curves round Loki’s sharp angles. That he would be wanting his _Pabbi_ to gently scratch the ridges around and between his head horns, and sing his _Dragon Song_ , made special just for them.

It was difficult to sing, just then, yet Loki felt he must, for his youngling, for his sweet son, his Jöri, bravest of all his children.

 _Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail_  
_Loki kept a lookout perched on Jör's gigantic tail_  
_Noble kings and princes would bow whene'er they came_  
_Pirate ships would lower their flags when Jör roared out his name!_

Together, they would roar out the chorus. There would be tickles and giggles.

There would be joy.

Why, only upon Midgard, which also knew its fair share of pain, cruelty, selfish desire, could there be joy?

The _Ӕsir_ knew boisterousness, they knew celebration of victory in battle, they knew pride in accomplishment, yet they knew not joy.

The _Vanir_ and the Light Elves knew grace and graciousness, achievement, the light of knowledge. They knew valour, passion, romantic love.

Yet they knew not joy.

Of the others… Who could tell?

Whatever the _Jötnar_ had once known, those days had ended, leaving only a dying people cast adrift upon a dying land.

Loki deeply, bitterly regretted his part in causing them harm. That act he had committed for Odin’s sake, that murder (for there could be no other word)—why could he not have left the Allfather to his idiot sleep, taken the Casket of Ancient Winters from the treasury and returned the strength of the  _Jötnar_ into his father, Laufey’s, hands, lingering only to look him in the eyes and ask him what he must know.

_Why?_

_Why did you abandon me?_

_Was it truly such an inconsequential thing as my size that made me worthless in your eyes?_

_Why, of all the babes in all the Realms was I judged unworthy not only of life, but of a parent’s affection?_

 

In that instant, time side-stepped hugely. Loki lay on cold gray stone, in the open air. He had no idea whatsoever, in all the Nine Realms of where he’d found himself.

One moment he’d been strolling up to the fourth level of the palace, where he’d stowed his once-father Odin for safekeeping while he enjoyed to rule. He’d kept the evil old goat soundless and invisible, yet very much alive.

It seemed less merciful that way, and Loki did not desire to bestow him mercy in this way.

Let the cruel old god rage and stew and suffer, Loki would bestow his mercy on more deserving citizens of Asgard.

The _Ӕsir_ had taken, of late, to commenting upon how wise, judicious and beneficent their Allfather had become.

Loki housed Odin in a little-used privy attached to the very last in a row of chambers assigned, now and then, (when they were used at all), to unpopular and unimportant visitors. Along with the obvious facilities, and accompanying water, Odin had been given a pair of shapeless but quite serviceable robes, ample cushions and blankets, a magically replenishing supply of a bland yet highly nutritious porridge. A good selection of the most painfully dull books Loki could find in the royal library (he very much regretted he had not been able to locate the ancient treatise on drains, thick as Thor’s thigh, written in an unreadable language he had once, in the past, encountered, but he had found several nearly as perfect for the Allfather’s entertainment).

He also outfitted Odin with an attractive pair of unremovable magic-quelling bracelets. Their workmanship was remarkable. Amongst his best ever.

Loki liked to report to his once-father, every now and then, how swimmingly the kingdom was running without him. As he had long suspected, Loki enjoyed a talent for ruling, when he need not be ever forcing his way upstream against the constant, grinding hatred leveled against his own person--oddly, when he wore Odin’s face, no one seemed to smell the _Jötnar_ stink upon him. He found it most amusing of all to see the Warriors Three and Sif treat him with unfailing deference, rather than ridicule, threats and contempt.

Perhaps it was the eye-patch.

Actually, though, Loki wondered, _did_ it amuse him? Or did it add yet more fissures to the slow breaking of his heart?

In the end, Loki could not tell.

In the end, he began to tire of the pretense, tire of the throne, of pomp and martial glory, of the endless feasts and ceremonies. Above all, he tired of Asgard.

Loki longed to be able to lose himself in his books, practice his magic, paint, play music, to make with his own hands intricate, useful, beautiful things.

He found himself lounging on the throne thinking of Myrddin, missing Myrddin with desperate need. Myrddin, or someone who would look into his eyes and never see a monster, never see despicable Loki, Loki the Failure Prince, sneaky, weak, tricksy unreliable Loki.

 _Ergi_ Loki, above everything.

There was no one left in Asgard he cared for, no one’s respect he craved. He dreamed oft-times of his brother, far from him, of his mother (always his mother, always, oh, I beg you forgive me, most dear) and awakened in tears.

Now and then, strangely, he dreamed of the odd little Man of Iron, cocky and defiant, dreamed of flinging himself through the fabric of the world to catch hold of him as he plummeted.

Dreamed of snatching him to safety.

He’d never understood why he awakened weeping from those dreams as well.

That last day Loki recalled climbing the stairs from the third level to the fourth, recalled the dim light, the smells of dust and disuse, the strike of his own boot-heels on the stone floor.

 _What would become of me if…_? he began to think.

Then nothing, for the longest of long times.

Loki thought, at first, that he had never left his cavern, that all had been another tear-inspiring dream, that he still lay stretched upon his bed of stones, arms pulled back and bound by the innards of his sweet younglings, Narfi and Vali, that Sigyn had turned away to empty her cup and the venom burned into the remnants of his eyes. That all else, every good thing, even Myrddin, had been a lie, a deceitful, pain-fueled dream.

Loki screamed. That thought, worse than any physical pain, finally broke him entirely.

There was no joy.

The joy had never been joy, but only delerium.

He knew no more coherent thought for a terrible weight of days, though he spoke with the Other Ones often, those sweet, soft voices from within him. From time to time he believed they could not be real, and yet they never left him alone to utter despair.

In time, Loki understood they were his children. His very own. His younglings, surpassingly beautiful, beyond compare, whom he loved and who loved him. He dreamed with them ever near his thoughts, and the pain was not so terrible.

Their voices woke him, at last, from his stupor. His bold _Valkyrja_ , Hela’s, voice in particular, always impossible to ignore.

 _Pabbi_ , we need to **_Be_**! she informed him. Loki understood her not. He wished she would only sing to him, as she sometimes did.

 _Wake up_! Hela insisted. _Now is not the time to run away. Do you hear me, Pabbi? Now is our time To **Be**._

Loki knew sudden fear, along with the strong gripping pain back behind his guts, crying out around the invading tube thrust down his throat. His arms and legs felt like no more than bundles of sticks, his skin as if it had been flayed away, the rigid suit that contained him, ever, in one shoulder-wrenching position allowed only the slightest movement and pressed painfully against his round belly. His secret place convulsed, trying to open, attempting to be something it was either not meant to be, or was not ripe for becoming.

Loki understood it was not yet his time, he had not fully ripened, and yet his dear ones, small and weak as they were still, must either Be now or never Be. Loki understood what he must do then, in that very moment.

Fueled by his terror, he gathered the ragged remnant of his _seiðr_ , and leapt.

He landed on hands and knees on a parapet, his weakness and the pain so intense he could not hold the position, falling instead onto his side, the stone brutally damp and chill after the too-hot confinement of the suit.

A quick swoop through the minds of those who dwelt below revealed the name of this place. He lay atop Castle Doom, in a land called Latveria, of the continent known as Europe.

Known on _Midgard_ as Europe.

How, in the name of Hela’s realm had he come once more to Midgard, stage of his greatest happiness, his greatest shame?

_How…_

Something, someone climbed toward him through the corridors of this place. An old presence, terribly well known, so dark and vast it blotted out the lights of sun and stars and moon.

Loki nearly vomited from the fear, and might have done still, had his belly not been void of any nourishment. As it was, he screamed again, blood flying from his raw mouth and throat.

_Not Baldr. Not Baldr. Oh, gods of all the Realms, not Baldr, please!_

The presence grew nearer, from the top of the stairs to the roof where he lay. Loki could not see. His panic grew greater and greater until the whole of his vision filled with red.

 _Worthy-of-sagas_ Pabbi, said a small diffident voice inside his head. _I have thought of a way for us to **Be**. I fear it will hurt you greatly. I am very sorry._

 _You must be still_ , Loki commanded himself. _You must be calm and, most of all, summon all strength you possess for your younglings_.

Yellow leaked in along the edges of his red vision, reminding Loki of something…

Reminding him of that small, strange, defiant, honourable man. A man who had flown into the eye of certain death to preserve the lives of strangers.

Yet they were strangers. They were _enemies._

However unwilling, Loki had done great harm to the small warrior's people, those he had sworn to guard.

 _He will slay you upon sight_ , said the voice of Loki’s fear, _And be well within his rights to do so._

 _Slay me, yes,_ Loki answered impatiently. _What do I care if he slays me? My body and spirit are broken, useless. He is a man of honour as well as a Man of Iron, and in that honour will allow no harm to come to my beloved ones._

Smiling a little with his torn mouth, Loki gathered every bit of strength he could, within and without himself. And with that he jumped one last time, jumped far as he had ever thought to venture, out into hope and uncertainty.

  
“ _Cariad_ ,” Myrddin murmured in Loki’s ear.

The wispy ends of his hair tickled Loki’s cheek. On the rare days Loki remained late in bed his dearest one had always woken him thus, with a murmured name of love and the whisper of child-soft hair against his skin.

He woke, ever, with a smile on his lips, and before his eyes opened, Myrddin would kiss the curve of them.

This time the kiss never came.

Loki sat, stiffly and painfully. The lake was no longer the lake it had been: its waters had turned blue as topaz, turquoise, lapis lazuli. The sand had turned warm—almost too warm, and golden, and the sky curved overhead unrelieved by any cloud, just the colour of his own _Jötunn_ skin.

Myrddin stood a little way along the beach, holding the hand of a small boy with dark-brown curls and mahogany eyes, a child who so resembled Tony it smote Loki’s hear tnearly in twain.

He knew then.

He knew the thing he had known for hours past, but would not admit to himself.

For some time tears blinded Loki’s eyes. When again he could see, the two he loved had gone, though Myrddin’s voice hung a moment on the air.

“ _Ddraig wen_ ,” he called. “ _Ddraig goch_. A place is prepared.”

Loki wept again, and the dragons twined round him, trying however they could to bring comfort. They were only thought by the ignorant to be reptilian and cold, he realized. This was never the truth. In truth, their hearts burned as hot as Loki’s own, and as sorrowful. In their enchanted sleep they had dreamt upon the sadnesses of life for a thousand years, whilst kingdoms rose and fell above their heads.

 

In an instant, winter came upon him again, and the mustiness of tonnes of earth and stone built itself again around him. Gone were the golden sands, the heat, the blue waters.

Darkness loomed, held at bay only by Loki’s own green light. A light that ebbed and flickered, fading, fading…

 _Rage, rage against…_ Loki thought.

That came from a poem, a Midgardian poem, written by a man who had lived not far at all from these Beacons, from these _Bannau Brycheiniog._

The light he had made to sustain himself and his son ever failed. Shadows leaped and capered over the cavern walls, yet Loki could tell not what they were, or what they meant.

What was he meant to rage against?

Something quite important, Loki thought, though for the life of him he could not remember. Now and then he forgot quite important things, though as a rule he remembered every excruciating detail of nearly everything else.

“Tony! Sherlock! Fetch the lanterns! We’re losing our light!” Could that John Watson’s voice?

How had John come here? He sounded quite commanding in his manner, when before he had seemed pleasant and easy-going, his ways merely spiced with piquant humour.

Loki’s head filled with swooping confusion. His vision dimmed, even as a fainter yellow-white light replaced his dying green.

Why did his green die? It ought to have been sustainable, even unto the end of his days.

_Rage, rage, against the dying of the light._

Only the poem did not truly reference dying light, it referenced dying, written by the poet Dylan Thomas because he could not bear his father’s mortality.

But he was not mortal! He was meant to live five thousand years, strong and vital, scarcely aging.

Only, would he? _Would he?_

The thought of his own possible mortality shocked Loki to frozen stillness. He did not even struggle to breathe.

True, in his great despair, he had sought a Death whilst under the auspices of S.H.I.E.L.D., but he had turned Her away and She had gone willingly. He had never thought a different Death might approach, whether he willed Her to attend him, or not. He though he saw her shadow, at a distance, dark and indistinct.

“Oh, god, John. Oh, god!” Tony sounded frantic. “He’s not breathing, John! Why is he not breathing? Loki, sweetheart, c’mon! C’mon, my sweet baby!”

Loki was being turned to his side, lifted slightly, a warm softness propping his shoulders and aching chest.

“Just breathe, breathe for me, baby,” Tony sobbed. “Breathe for me, you can do that, right? You did it before, it’s no big deal.”

A massive cramp, mind-destroyingly painful, shot through him, impaling Loki from his lower back through into his belly. His legs pulled up in instinctive protectiveness, and he screamed, or tried to, though it changed in his throat to no more than a gurgling cry. The water he had breathed in as a fish, swimming through the dark caves to the place of dragons, still filled his lungs. The water that was not real, that should not have been real within him.

Dreams were become truth, the mortal world dreams, as his light became darkness.

Then there was no help for it, all he could do was cough and cough and cough, water and all sorts of nastiness spewing out of him, entirely beyond his control.

“Would you please stop flailing about?” Sherlock snapped. “You only make things worse.”

“What the actual fuck did you do, Sherly?” Tony raged, every bit of his fierce bantam temper clearly engaged. “He’s your _Pabbi_ , you couldn’t be bothered to watch him? How for fuck’s sake did he get in the water?”

Loki felt the ghost of a grin pass over his frozen lips. “ _'Don’t call me Shirley_ ,’” he mouthed to Tony, who was by now bending over him. That had been in the foolish film of badly flown aeroplanes they’d watched together. He had understood almost none of it, yet it made him laugh anyway in its sublime silliness.

Sometimes, in divers situations, Tony would ask him under his breath, with a cocked eyebrow and a bit of a wicked grin, “Do you like gladiator movies, Loki?” It was their code that his husband was desirous of making love unto him, and Loki would ever oblige, the moment he was able. He loved Tony’s compact, well-muscled body, with its nests of curling black hair. He loved Tony’s firm lips, the scratch of Tony’s beard and stubble against his jaw, the touch of Tony’s strong, rough-textured hands, and his heated, mortal skin.

He loved his Tony completely, not in any way more than Myrddin, or less, but equally and differently.

Myrddin had been quicksilver, moonlight and mystery. Tony was molten iron, the sun and passion. Myrddin took the easy way, ever. They never quarreled. Loki and Tony quarreled frequently, two stubborn creatures that they were, but they laughed together a thousand times more often than these quarrels occurred.

Loki did not, did not want to leave his Tony. He wished to drink up every last measure of their shared joy.

A second cramp hit, with twice the agony of the first. Loki spewed again, violently, Tony’s arms holding him with desperate strength.

His secret place had not changed, how could it? Loki was nowhere near his time, months from it, in fact. The tight, small tunnel throbbed and ached, but nothing, not even a thing the breadth of his smallest finger could have passed through it. Not even the blood passed, beyond the merest dribble, rising instead within him like the neap-tide of a malign sea, unnaturally swelling his belly.

A third cramp hit, even harder, though the second had never properly ended. His cries bounced thinly off the dome of the cavern.

“Okay, let’s get him up,” John said. “I can’t do anything down here in the sand.”

“What do you mean _‘do anything_.’ Fucking define ‘ _do anything_ ,’ John.” Tony’s voice, which always held such confidence, trembled and cracked. His fingers were wound so tight in Loki’s hair they pulled, though he scarcely noticed in the completeness of his other pain.

“That big stone block thingy,” John said, all calm.

“It’s a pagan altar,” Sherlock informed them. “Stone Age, I should think.”

“Well, thank you very much Michael Woods for bringing us _The Story of Britain_ ,” John said drily. “I don’t actually give very much of a fuck about its historical significance. I do care that it’s level, dry and not covered with sand. Now lift.”

“BAMF John. I like,” Tony said shakily.

Then Loki was being lifted, carried unsteadily over the stony ground, roughly released onto the red-brown ironstone altar.

 _Ironstone from the Iron Age_ , he thought, and would have laughed, except his pain was too great and the jest not particularly amusing.

“Sherlock,” John commanded, “Start a fire. Get some water boiling. Tony, get his clothes off. There’s a sterile drape in my medical kit. When you’re through, we’ll try to get that under him.”

John’s deft, small hands prodded his belly, firmly yet gently.

Loki wanted to tell him, _No, no, it isn’t there…_

“How much water, John?”

“Enough to clean him, and my hands. My instruments—scalpel, needles for sutures, hemostats are already sterile and sealed. You can fetch those, and gloves, too, Tony. God, one can practically hear the blood slosh inside! Why hasn’t it drained?” His hand rubbed over Loki’s distended abdomen. “How are you there, Loki? Holding up?”

The gentle touch over his belly soothed him a little, but Loki was too busy trying not to scream to answer the mortal healer.

“I’m trying to decide whether to go in transvaginally or from the front,” John said, in deep contemplation. “Damn, this light’s bad! Sherlock, bring up the lanterns, won’t you?”

“From the back,” Tony said, in a choked voice. “That's where it is... the womb. He doesn't have a vagina, and what he does have, you couldn't get a pencil through, much less your hand. Not... not even the blood could. God, John, my baby... Our baby…”

The sound of Tony fighting so hard not to weep, to clothe himself in his best courage in order to be Loki’s strength, nearly destroyed him. He managed to move his hand just enough to brush Tony’s wrist with his fingertips.

“Oh, my sweet baby,” Tony said, then bent to kiss Loki’s temple. “It’ll be okay. More after this, or no more, we’ll get by. We already have everything we need.”

But when Tony kissed him again, and murmured in his ear, “Love you always, my darling,” the hot salt of his tears nearly scalded Loki’s skin.


	9. The Dangers of a Beating Human Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing in forty-odd years of being Tony-effing-Stark could possibly have prepared him for this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um... guys... I kind of feel as if need to apologize for this one, because it's really, really sad, even for me. There's medical stuff, but I tried not to make it too graphic (I hope). No trivia this time, and an unusually short chapter, because when I tried to tack on the next bit, plot-wise, it felt... wrong, so I'm just stopping here, with the sadness, and then we'll move on to dragons and intrigue in the chapters to come.

* * *

“Tony,” a voice called to him. From a long, long way off, maybe. “Tony?”

For an eternal time, the guy’s voice didn’t switch on any sense of recognition on Tony’s part. It was deepish. It was fancy. But it was also strange, and belonged to someone he wasn’t sure he knew. Someone foreign.

 _I want to wake up now_ , he thought. _I don’t like this._

Only then he realized he was awake. And sober. Way, way, way more awake and a million times more sober than he’d ever wanted to be. Hadn’t he spent his entire adult life avoiding this kind of shit?

Despite his totally undesired sobriety, Tony couldn’t focus. Not on the voice, not on its owner. Not on anything. How much time had passed? Minutes, hours, days—he couldn’t have said, exactly.

 _You’re sad_ , said the voice in his head, the one he'd thought of, ever since he was a little kid, as Mr. Reader (only when Tony was a little kid, Mr. Reader had been a kid too, maybe just a little older than him). Mr. Reader, of course, read his books to him, and now and then entertained him with snippets of interesting information in a voice a lot like his own voice, only maybe just a little more classy.

 _You’re grieving, and possibly more than a little in shock_ , Mr. Reader continued, kindly enough, though somewhat on the firm side. _Still, you might want to consider getting it together, my friend. You know very well that’s Sherlock calling to you, and he probably has something important to say. You’ve grieved before, Tony._

He had grieved before. Slightly-More-Classy-Tony was perfectly correct. A man his age, both parents dead, of course he’d grieved. Not so much for Howard, naturally—more for the father he’d never had and never could have now, all possibilities between them ended in the skid of four wheels on asphalt--but there’d been feelings for Maria, his mom. Sweet, pretty, vague Maria.

He’d still been a kid when the accident-that-wasn't-an-accident happened. He’d had feelings. Fear, if nothing else.

And, well, with Jarvis, later... There’d been genuine grief for Jarvis. Tony had loved the man with whatever he had in him. Funny, he'd thought then that was all he ever would have, the limit of the love and caring he had to spend.

He’d already been putting away substantial amounts of less-than-licit substances when Jarvis got sick (along with his old, perfectly legal favorite, scotch, and a few vodka chasers to keep it company). As his old friend got worse, his consumptions--both legal and illegal--increased. By the time Jarvis passed, Tony could sometimes still spell his own name. On a good day.

Ironically, no matter what he took, in whichever quantities, he remained one fucking kickass engineer. If anything (and this wasn’t just some weird engineering version of booze-goggles talking), his skills improved. As if, those last few inhibitions dropped, he could imagine anything, anything in the whole world.

So, on he went: retreat, medicate, escape. That had always been his way.

Jarvis had understood. Right up to the end, on his deathbed, he’d been trying to take care of Tony.

He wished he had Jarvis here now. Or J.A.R.V.I.S. Tony wasn’t picky. A calm voice of reason to tell him what to think, how to feel these feelings, what to do. Or, failing that, to serve him a nice three or four fingers of single-malt to nicely dim the pain.

Only (omitting, for a second, that there wasn’t a single substance of an intoxicating nature, Glenmorangie or otherwise, anywhere close at hand) Tony knew what getting caught up in his old ways would mean. His old ways would mean that he lost Loki. Loki needed him desperately. Loki expected him to be a stand-up guy, for once in his spoiled, pathetic existence. And, oh ye gods of the _Ӕsir,_ how he needed Loki.

His fiancé may have been the Frost-Giant, but he’d been the one rocking the cold, numb, mechanical heart, and there was no way Tony could go back to that way of being.

The only thing was, a warm, human heart bruised and bled so easily. So, so easily. Even though he knew he couldn’t do without one anymore, Tony also didn’t know how he could stand the pain. It all lay so far outside his experience.

He’d thought Castle Doom was bad, or the aftermath of Loki’s incarceration by S.H.I.E.L.D. He'd thought things couldn't get worse than flying into the Chitauri portal without even Pepper’s voice to give him strength, or maybe Afghanistan, and that other cave… 

 _Let it be a lesson,_ Stark, he told himself. _No more caves for you!_

His ears still held echoes of the screams Loki had tried so hard to hold in, until he just wasn’t able to do it any longer. John didn’t have any anesthetic and Loki was suffering too much to bring the magic that might have helped him, which left the doctor with nothing but his skilled hands and (for a guy who looked like a small, prickly woodland creature), balls of undeniable steel. He’d dived into the impromptu surgery fast and sure, not a second of hesitation.

Tony knew that quickness, that sureness, was an absolute necessity. It would save Loki’s life if anything could, because Loki was bleeding out inside, with something in the baby’s death killing him surely and undeniably. There weren’t any choices here, no possibility of delay, only…

Only…

The guilt, to Tony, felt not only terrible, but nearly fatal. He’d held Loki, he really had, just as long as he could, with Loki fighting not to squirm in his arms because it just hurt so badly, too much for even a god to bear. Tony wasn’t sure if it was the (what appeared to be) literal gallons of his fiancé’s blood spilling onto the altar, soaking into its porous stone, or the moment John’s deft, stubby little hand just disappeared into…

No. No, he couldn’t. Couldn’t picture, couldn’t remember, couldn’t think.

And, yeah he’d abandoned ship, punked out, deserted his post. He’d left Loki alone with strangers, left Sherlock’s loveless, emotionless, hands holding him down instead of his own loving ones.

For what? Because he’d had to scurry into a slightly-removed passage off the main cabin in order to sob and snivel and puke his guts out, like the sorry excuse for a man he was?

He couldn’t even make himself go back until Loki was silent and still, finally overcome by the pain, shock and blood-loss, and passed out cold. About the time John had started to mutter under his breath, “Where is it? Dammit, where is it? None of this is bloody right.”

At which point Sherlock began to describe Loki’s reproductive system in a clipped voice and precise, scientific terms, not meeting his friend’s eyes.

“Sherlock?” John said softly.

“Have you found him… it… the fetus?” the detective snapped back. “Lining the posterior wall of the… womb… there ought to be several egg follicles. Feel along the line.”

John blinked once. “Got ‘em.” Seconds later, he shook his head. “Nothing here.”

“Then just to the left of the center line, also posterior and six-to-eight centimeters up from the womb floor, a duct, or opening to a tube…”

“The sperm duct,” Tony whispered. His throat was raw.

“Ah. Got it. Shit,” John hissed. “There’s a torsion, or blockage… No. Oh, no.”

Tony knelt by the head of the altar, burying his face in Loki’s sweat-drenched hair, muttering into the rust-smelling stone, “My baby, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, my baby.” He didn’t know if he was talking to his beloved Loki, or to baby Wilhelm. Probably to both.

He loved them both so much, Loki for all that lay between them, past, present, future. Poor little Wilhelm for everything that might have been, if only...

He become so fucking sick of “if onlies.”

Some uncountable time later, John squatted beside him. His firm, small hand squeezed Tony’s shoulder. “Tony, are you with me?”

Tony gave a kind of grunt of combined fear, shame and dismay.

John squeezed again, a little harder. “Tony, turn around, sit down, listen to me a moment.” His voice was a combination of Kind John and Military John: nice, but expecting to be instantly obeyed.

Tony turned. He sat. He kind of wanted to throw up again, but that ship had sailed—there wasn’t anything left in him.

John’s quizzical hedgehog face looked sympathetic, and a little sad. He reached out and brushed ironstone dust off Tony’s face, showing him the red-brown stain on his fingers afterward. “Are you ready to listen?”

Tony nodded, though he didn’t want to. He hated bad news, and how could any of the news be good on a day like today?

“I… Is Loki…?”

John gave a slight smile. “Amazingly, Loki’s hanging in there. I’ve delivered the... er... placenta and cleaned up everything in there as thoroughly as I could in these circumstances. I put in a few stitches, but the duct wasn’t torn as badly as I feared and ought to heal decently. The bleeding’s been contained. I’ve started Loki on a drip, including an antibiotic to fight infection and a sedative, both approved by your Dr. Hank McCoy. In a few moments you can help Sherlock and me make him comfortable in one of the sleeping bags."

Tony tried to nod, tried to give John something like a smile, but he didn't have it in him. His mouth felt crumpley, like the wavering line a cartoonist might draw on the face of a confused cartoon character, like the expression Charlie Brown's face might have after Lucy pulled the millionth football away from him.

"I… Tony, I don’t know what…” John, suddenly with only a ghost of his usual confidence, produced a shallow black-plastic tray, probably something from out of his medical kit, with a swaddling of surgical drape inside it. “Tony, I am truly sorry,” he said. “There was nothing…That is to say I was only operating to save…”

“To save Loki, I know,” Tony rasped. “I’m really glad you were here, John. You and Sherlock both. You’d probably never guess that I usually don’t completely fall apart under pressure, huh? What a useless idiot.”

“This was your son, and also the man you love, Tony,” John told him kindly. “We’d never allow you in the operating theater under ordinary circumstances. If it was Mary, and my son…” John raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I can’t say what I’d do.”

“Not fall apart like a total asshole,” Tony said.

“I can’t say,” John repeated firmly. “I greatly regret having put you through this. I believe… Would you care to spend some time alone with your son, whilst I finish making Loki comfortable?”

Tony just nodded--at least he could finally do that much. He couldn’t speak any more.

He didn’t want to put the drape aside, either. But he did.

Wilhelm was perfect. Tiny and perfect, just exactly the size to fit in his hand. Tony carried him down to the lake and washed him, gently and thoroughly, using torn scraps of the drape as washcloths. He pulled off his jacket, his sweater, then his beloved old AC/DC t-shirt from underneath, pulling the outer two garments back on quickly, before he could get chilled.

It wasn’t as cold down there in the cavern as he would have expected, but it was cold enough. He wrapped Wilhelm in the soft, worn cotton tee, his tiny son’s cold skin briefly taking on warmth from Tony’s lingering warmness. In that moment, the baby, small as he was, seemed only to be sleeping. Only for that moment.

His beautiful boy. His beautiful, beautiful little boy.

There on the lakeshore, Tony cried until he’d felt completely drained of life himself. Until Sherlock came to fetch him and pull him out of his wallow of grief.

When he glanced up, he was amazed to see Loki sitting on the edge of the altar with his best Prince of Asgard posture, dressed in a pair of dark-gray sweats against which his pallor practically glowed, and not in his best way, that alluring moonlit glow his fiancé would take on at times.

This time he only looked drained of life too, all the animation, the vitality, sucked right out of him.

“Tony,” Loki called to him softly, his normally gorgeous voice trashed by illness and overuse.

Tony jumped clumsily to his feet, hurrying up the slight rise toward his fiancé in a shambling run, his tiny precious burden clutched awkwardly, tenderly to his chest.

“That is he?” Loki asked in the same thread of a voice, and it hit Tony like a brick wall that his honey was still very much under the weather from his nasty bout of measles, heat radiating off his body, a sheen of sweat filming his skin. His whole back had been covered with those white, scale-like bumps. He trembled in fine, small shivers and the circles under his eyes were so dark he looked like he’d been punched, hard in the face.

“There is a thing I have done,” Loki said, with a kind of dull weariness in his tone. “It is like a glamour, _hjarta minn_ , except that instead of a false appearance it raises a false wall that serves to mask pain. If I… If I seem cold to you, if I seem not to feel enough, you see not me, belovéd, but only the effects of my Craft. Know my heart holds it all still, but will hold it blind and muted until our ends here are achieved, and we are home once more. I do not do this to abandon you alone with the burden, but because I must be capable. I must…”

Two tears, and two tears only, one from each eye, spilled over Loki’s lower lids.

“Oh, Tony, I am so sorry. I am so very sorry I failed you in this. I did not keep your child safe within me. I did not secure your line. Now I deeply fear your heart will not find the grace to forgive me.”

“Babe, what the hell is there to forgive?”

Tony made his best effort to speak quietly, but Loki still visibly cringed.

“What I mean is, sweetheart," he continued, more gently. "You’ve done nothing wrong. There’s nothing to forgive. I’m not Henry VIII, I’m not gonna chop off your head if you don’t secure my dynasty. As far as I'm concerned, we have three beautiful healthy kids. If we have more someday, that’s great, if we don’t that’s still no reason to worry. Please don’t make yourself extra sad about this, baby. The only sorrow is that we lost our little guy, not that you let me down in any way. Bad shit happens for stupid reasons, and it’s nobody’s fault, okay?”

Loki leaned against him, his held-in breath coming out in a soft sigh. “I am very weary, Tony, and must soon rest. Only, I would…”

He ducked his head, all words lost to him, his breath coming in small, jerky gasps.

“Sure, babe. Sure.” Tony folded back the t-shirt carefully, and for several minutes Loki just looked, not touching the small body, not saying anything.

Finally, he pressed the tip of his index finger lightly to the crown of Wilhelm’s head, then to his round tummy, then to his infinitesimal feet. His skin began to glow, almost angelically, with a soft golden light.

“Thus to see him safe,” Loki said, sagging against Tony’s shoulder, “Until we may bring him home again.”

Sherlock, unexpectedly, appeared beside them then, carrying a trim rectangular case of black leather. Tony had no idea what it had held once—some delicate piece of John’s equipment, he guessed--but it was exactly the right size.

Magic or not, spell or no spell, Loki sobbed against Tony’s shoulder until he could no longer sit, much less stand, until the only things holding him upright were Tony’s arms wrapped around his body. At that point John intervened, signaling Sherlock to help. Between the three of them they maneuvered Loki’s limp, unresisting body over to a sleeping bag John had spread out on the sand, arranging him carefully so as not to strain the layers of stitches John had put into his back.

John set up another I.V.

“I’m bumping up the sedative,” the doctor said. “Loki needs a good stretch of uninterrupted sleep, and you should join him, Tony. Sherlock and I will take turns keeping watch. I’m not quite convinced of my own prowess with a dragon-slaying sword, but I can raise the alarm, at any rate.”

He might have said more, but Tony didn’t hear it. He pulled a second sleeping bag over himself and Loki both and took his fiancé into his arms, breathing his scent, pressing Loki’s hot skin against his skin, holding him just as closely as he was able.

They slept that way, for hours, until Tony was awakened by a deep low hum, traveling fast through the stones beneath him.

“Sherlock! Tony! Loki!” John shouted, his voice higher than usual with tension.

All around, the earth came alive with a sudden loud grumble, trembling as if a seven-point earthquake was rushing in toward them, too fast for anyone to possibly escape.


	10. Here Be Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki deals with the dragons and Tony (figuratively speaking) tumbles down the rabbit hole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In _The Return of the King_ , when Pippin asks what happens after we die, Gandalf answers that it is like a swift sunrise and a white shore. I would like it to be so. 
> 
> A stereopticon (though it sounds a little like something from _Doctor Who_ ) is actually a Victorian entertainment device used to view pictures (often of exotic locales) in 3-D.
> 
> Bock is a dark German beer, Helles is a light German beer and Dornfelder is a sweet red German wine.
> 
> It was the Red Queen from _Alice in Wonderland _who said " _I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast._ "__

* * *

“Lok, for the love of all your gods of assorted weird shit,” Tony yelled. “You’ve gotta wake up!” He was terrified to manhandle his fiancé in case he hurt him, but he was equally afraid Loki would get himself impaled by a falling stalagmite if he just left him lying—or did he mean stalactite? Geology was so not his branch of science.

Tony didn’t care for his own personal chances of not getting stalactite- (or stalagmite-) impaled either, not if Loki kept lying there dead to the world and not hauling his poor unhealthy ass off the sleeping bag and away to the relative safety of the nearest side-tunnel.

John Watson started a dash toward them, dodging and weaving, yelling, “Tony, you have to get him up! It’s unsafe!” He flung himself to his knees beside Loki and tried a few things, like face-slapping and earlobe pinching, that Tony hadn’t been able to bring himself to do, but with no better result.

The floor of the cavern gave an enormous roller-coastery, rippling shudder, and the entire stony dome overhead, not to be left behind, split in two like a mammoth eggshell, pelting them first with mud and globs of semi-melted snow, then gravel, then small chunks of rock, then increasingly larger ones, just the size to damn well hurt and leave bruises--until it was boulders and the stalactites themselves tearing furiously from the ceiling and hurtling toward them through the rubble-filled air.

_Wow. So this is how I die_ , zipped through Tony’s head, almost with a sense of wonder.

There wasn’t time to summon the suit. There wasn’t time for anything.

John gave a kind of manly grunt-shout noise, and threw himself over Loki. The sound Tony made wasn’t nearly so macho, but he still threw himself over John.

And then both boulders and spikes stopped about two-thirds of the way down, drifting listlessly on the air.

After a minute or so the mud and slush stopped plopping down too.

Either Tony had gone deaf, or the broken-open cavern had gone ear-numbingly quiet.

When he glanced up, he saw Sherlock gazing down at them quizzically. “Not dead then?” he asked, in the tone most people reserved for earth-shattering utterances like, “Chicken for dinner again?”

Tony peeled himself off John’s back. Somehow, sticky mud had found itself inside his clothes, down the backs of his sweater and his jeans, even into his socks. How in actual hell had it gotten inside his socks? It felt icy-slimy cold and disgusting--but on a positive note, he hadn’t been run through by a stalagmite.

“Stalagmites,” Loki said reflectively, “Are the ones that point up, and you should be unfortunate indeed to impale yourself upon one.  Stalactites, on the other hand…"

“How long can you hold them?” Tony interrupted. "I’m actually have a hard time believing you are holding them. Which you are, aren’t you?”

Loki’s eyes were open, weary, hazily green. He appeared to be thinking of something that had nothing to do with the tons of rock currently floating over their heads. Tony was not filled with confidence. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t believe in Loki’s abilities as that he wasn’t positive at the moment that Loki could currently remember from one moment to the next that he had abilities, and that those abilities were the only thing keeping them from being smashed into blood orange marmalade.

“I remember quite well,” Loki answered, “Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

With that, rocks and stalactites moved together, closer and closer to one another, until they made up a slowly-turning ball in the air, then a smaller ball, its ironstone grays, rust-reds and sandytones transmuting into swirls of purple, deep crimson, Loki-green.

By the time it touched ground the ball was transparent, perfectly, smoothly round, and about the height of John and Tony’s heads.

“Now, that’s just showing off, Lok.”

“It is not a time for laughter, belovéd,” Loki answered gently. He climbed to his feet slowly and painfully, but when Tony stretched out a hand to steady him, Loki raised his own hand in warning.

The shining ball rose again, floating, looking light and iridescent as a soap bubble. Over the altar, it lowered again, not going to rest on the ironstone block, but slipping over it, until the entire altar was a murky shape, barely visible inside the multicolored sphere.

“That my blood not be pilfered and used then to fuel foul deeds,” Loki said wearily.

Whatever that meant. He was still staring at his giant magic rock, where strange little lights now flickered, his back to them. There was blood on his shirt over where John made his incision. A lot of blood. Maybe too much. He seemed, to Tony, the least human he had ever been, but more completely lovable than ever.

“Put on your suit, Tony,” Loki commanded, his voice low but compelling. “Take John. Take my sons and remove them to a place as distant as may be.”

“Loki,” John said, the voice of reason. “We can’t leave you here to slay dragons on your own. I doubt you could even swing the sword in your condition—it’s fairly damn heavy.”

Loki reached out one long white arm, and the sword, buried in mud and filth along with their other luggage, flew up clean and shining through the air, straight to his hand.

Loki held the hilt a moment, turning the weapon this way and that, studying the inscriptions on theblade, then said softly, “No, I have no use for cold steel, for no dragons shall perish today, except perhaps one, and he shall not fight against you.”

With a force worthy of Thor he plunged St. George’s sword straight into the heart of the stone, until only the pommel remained outside it.

Fuck, Tony thought ridiculously, Rupert’s gonna be in such deep shit at work.

“Now, go!” Loki shouted, and when he glanced over his shoulder his eyes had changed, were changing, his long, white fingers growing longer and whiter by the second, pearly membranes forming in the spaces between them.

“I know not if, once transformed, I can contain my fire,” Loki shouted. “Go, please!”

There was a second when the three of them glanced at one another, clearly thinking, _Nah, he can’t be serious_ , and then the next second when Tony recalled that one of his kids actually _was_ a dragon, albeit a nice, gentle, apartment-sized one, at least thirty per cent of the time, and he’d gotten that from somewhere, now, hadn’t he?

Something in his expression must have cued the others, because all of a sudden Tony was tapping his summoning bracelets like whoa, passing the leather case to Sherlock as pieces of suit started to snap around his body, then taking it back again when fully suited, hovering low enough to boost his companions over the worst drifts of rubble that tried to block their scramble through the crack in the mountainside as they fled like absolute bloody hell.

Outside was still plenty chilly, but when Tony cracked his faceplate, breathing the fresh air felt like drinking truly excellent champagne from a flute of fine crystal.

Best of all was the sight of a Winnebago, large as life and twice as welcome, pulled up beside the road, down at the bottom of the hill.

“Fly ahead,” John panted. He and Sherlock clung together, half from exhaustion, Tony guessed, and half for comfort, both of them puffing like steam-trains. “Let them know.”

Rupert and Mary had already covered a good part of the distance before Tony touched down, running pretty damn fast for a short little woman and an oldish dude.

“What? What?” Mary was yelling. “What, Tony?”

Tony stopped dead, realizing he totally didn’t have an answer. He’d run for the hills—or out of the hills, taking Loki’s word about no slaying, but that meant…

He was just about to shake his head, and to give the half-assed reply that was actually all he had to give, when the mountain fucking exploded. One minute flat from Highest Peak in Wales to in-ground swimming pool.

Actually, the swimming pool comparison was fairly apt, too, because water had gone everywhere, fountains of water, and billows of steam, and in the middle of it, like something made of living fire and nearly half the size of Stark Tower, the red dragon shot straight up into the sky. Then, shimmering and blinding white, equally long but slightly on the sleeker side, and even faster than the red, the white dragon burst out, hot on its tail.

Finally, the last of the three, much smaller, heartbreakingly slender, graceful, beautiful, a dragon that glimmered with moonlight and starlight and the colors and lights of the aurora borealis.

“That’s not…?” Rupert said.

“That isn’t…?” John chimed in.

They found themselves pulling together into a tight little cluster, Sherlock and Rupert taking tall person duties in the back row, Tony, John and Mary bunched in the front, the short-people row. Anthea nowhere to be seen.

“Inside. Couldn’t be arsed,” Mary said, as if Tony had asked aloud, which he hadn’t.

All five of them turned their faces up to the frosty, star-filled sky.

It seemed as if the stars were ringing like bells, shimmering with ripples of clear, chiming sound.

“Like the changes rung on handbells,” Rupert breathed, his face full of sorrow and wonder.

When Tony asked him, another time, what he’d meant, the older man explained that changes were the traditional sequences of notes rung on churchbells, sequences the bellringers learned on handbells first, to get their notes and timing right before they raised the huge, heavy rope-rung bells.

And that the big bells each had names, like people. Like stars.

“Another world now, I’m afraid,” Rupert said, a little sadly, “Another time.”

But Tony suspected that might have just been Rupert being British, putting on a comfortable mask of pessimism. Because they had seen dragons swarm through the night sky, and heard the stars chime. What else could come close?

Loki tried to explain to him once (to the tune of Tony’s semi-gentle mocking) that everything in the world wore at least two faces: _Andlit Holdsins_ , the face of the flesh, or the physical, and _Andlit Anda_ , the face of the spirit, or true face.

Maybe because they were sitting together on the terrace by the fire-pit, looking up at the cloudy midnight-in-Manhattan sky, he’d actually used the stars as his example.

“ _Andlit Holdsins_ ,” Loki had said, “The stars are giant balls of gas, rather like Volstagg, now that I mention it, that hang in the firmament light years away from us. _Andlit Anda_ , they are close enough to touch with the reach of my hand, delicate as spun glass, beautiful beyond compare, eternal and short-lived, and oh, Tony, so wise we cannot imagine it. They ring like bells in the night sky.”

Because Loki had looked a little sad then, or at least pensive, Tony hadn’t continued cracking wise, but he’d wondered if that was a bit of Loki mischief, or bullshit, or whatever he should call it.

But now he’d heard the stars ring, and wished he’d listened, really listened to what Loki told him, instead of being so impressed with himself, his own brains, his own wit.

The thing about being the smartest guy in every room is that he forgot it might not always be that way. He forgot that Loki, despite his math-impairment and sometimes unique way of putting things, had seen and understood things he himself could barely even conceive of.

Above them now the huge dragons, red and white, rose and plunged in the darkness. Their horned heads batted and rubbed at one another, their necks twined, their long, barbed tails swung, encircled, knotted, flailed, until Tony had no idea if it was a greeting, the prelude to a mating, maybe, or perhaps to a fight.

Sherlock’s pale face turned up to the night sky. His silver-blue eyes flickered, watching the great creatures move against the backdrop of stars and indigo sky, the way the small dragon glimmered between them, circling, weaving around their bodies. “It’s a pattern,” he said at last, sounding uncharacteristically confused. “A very complex one.” He paused. “It’s like… mathematics, a formula too complex for me to hold in my head. I can see what it _does_ , but not what it _is_.”

“Oh, yes!” Rupert’s deep voice rumbled suddenly. “Yes, now I see!”

“I'm clueless,” Mary said.

“Equally clueless,” her husband put in.

Tony squinched up his eyes, trying to see. He almost had it. Almost. He just kept tripping up on the way it seemed to make all the sense in the world and no sense at all—and maybe also that his beloved Loki’s universe could be so vast, so full of wonder, and his own so relatively small.

“What is it, please?” Tony asked at last, and even to his own ears his voice sounded young, frightened, insignificant.

“Subtraction.” Anthea moved in beside him, wrapping her neatly-gloved hands around Tony’s arm. “He removes them from our universe and into Elsewhere.”

Even Tony heard the capital letter in her voice and knew at once what she meant. Elsewhere. Neverland. The White Lands, where death was " _a swift sunrise and a white shore_." Avalon, that Loki had called The Island of the Ever-Young. The land of myths. The land of legends.

Red dragon, white dragon, Loki, all moved slowly, constantly farther and farther away. They'd begun to look insubstantial, and so small he could have held all three in his cupped hands.

Tony feared, suddenly, that Loki had gone so far he might get lost, that he’d never see him again—and that maybe Loki wouldn’t want to leave The Island of the Ever-Young. Maybe it was his kind of place.

His heart raced, his head pounded, and Tony found himself screaming out Loki’s name again and again, while all the time electrical prickles of hot and cold raced up and down his body, over every centimeter of his skin, and the stars chimed louder, and louder still.

_Something’s happening to me!_ he thought, in amazement and terror _Oh, shit, something’s happening!_

The whole world twisted.

* * *

Loki sent him a text. It had a weird font, curly and twisty, much like Loki's handwriting.  Tony's phone looked weird too, all copper, brass and wood, surprisingly Steampunkish, when he remembered it being flat, black and sleek.

His fiance's text read only:

_Hjarta minn_ , meet me, please at Vogelsangweg 5/1 73630 Remshalden Stuttgart, BadenWurttemberg, DE

“Well, color me confused.” Tony showed the screen to Rupert.

“DE is Deutschland,” Rupert said, “Germany.” Rupert appeared to sparkle slightly, like a _Twilight_ vampire, though it seemed rude to mention the fact. His voice sounded even deeper and more sonorous than ever.

Tony managed to restrain an eye roll.

“I do actually know where Stuttgart is located. The question is, really, what the hell? Why did Loki disappear as a dragon over the Brecon Beacons in Wales and pop up again, two days later—presumably human—in Germany?”

“Loki does have friends there,” Rupert said. “At least a couple that I know of.”

“But why now? Two days after he disappeared. And, friends or not, Stuttgart wasn’t his finest hour, ya know?”

“One of his friends there is a skilled cabinet maker,” Rupert said. “He’s a man Loki rescued from the camps, and I suppose they bonded over their love of making beautiful things. I believe I even met _Herr_ Mendelssohn once. He appeared rather grumpy, but was really a lovely man.”

Rupert topped off Tony’s tea.

Tony remembered that he really kind of hated tea in all its forms, but it seemed like sacrilege to say so to Rupert, so he kept quiet and listened instead to Buffy and the little Gileses play at swordfighting with real swords all over the floor above.

And, actually, the tea wasn’t half bad—at least it wasn’t Loki’s usual Earl Grey shit—it tasted like flowers and sunlight, pleasantly fragrant and sweet.

“I could go with you, if you liked,” Rupert said, but Tony could tell that, being reunited with his family, he didn’t want to leave them again.

“Nah, that’s okay,” Tony told him. “I’ll manage.”

 

Tony stood on a side walk, facing a neat little stone cottage with dark brown trim. It looked like it could have come from _Grimm’s Fairy Tales_ , as if it could have comfortably housed the Seven Dwarves, or The Shoemaker and the Elves. It even had a neat little cobblestone path leading up to the front door, which was painted a perfect Loki-green, with a gold handle and a gold knocker.

Tony felt weirdly shy about going up the path and knocking.

He felt weird, period.

How was he in Germany?

You’d think he’d remember leaving Wales, hitting London, flying…

“You’d better go in,” said the thin man in the black suit and the bowler hat standing next to him. “Loki’s waiting.”

Tony tried to give the guy a closer look, but couldn’t manage to see him exactly, only that fucking anachronistic hat.

“Look, Jeeves,” Tony started to say, but the guy was gone. He’d been there. Tony knew he’d been there. Where the hell had he gone?

He tried looking up and down the street. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Great. Now he was hallucinating guys in butler hats and forgetting entire international flights.

Maybe he needed medication.

In the absence of atypical anti-psychotics, Tony forced himself to calm down and look around him. Observation. That was a scientist thing, and he had a rational, logical, scientific mind. Therefore, observe, Tony.

The section of Birdsong Way Loki had directed him to was modern (except for the standout fairy tale cottage), residential and tidy, the way most parts of Germany he’d seen were tidy. Most of the people he met, like Kurt, were pleasant and polite, though somewhat more reserved than his Bavarian friend—maybe that was just Kurt’s nature, or maybe being raised by Romany sorcerers in the circus would have that effect on you. Sometimes he wondered if the world had just broken eighty years before, something dark, terrible and inhuman leaking in—or maybe some Hydra chemical mind control--to turn a generation of these pleasant, tidy people into people who could either cause or allow those things that had happened to happen.

But then he guessed the dark, terrible thing was really the most human thing of all—it was called human nature, and it had allowed that same sort of awful events to take place in every single country on the planet, usually on a smaller scale, but often on a grand one as well. Somehow the Stalins, the Pol Pots, the Idi Amins bullied their way to power and the rest was the worst parts of human history. The languages of the world were chock-full of ugly words for ugly things: bigotry, racism, homophobia, racial intolerance, religious intolerance, ethnic cleansing, jihad, crusade, eugenics, mutant registration…

Sometimes, Tony despaired. Sometimes he wondered if he was any better than the rest. Sometimes he thought he’d like to put all the stupid people on a desert island, so they could all be stupid together and stop fucking things up for everyone else. Not people with intellectual disabilities, he didn’t mean that at all—he only had to step into Fen’s classroom to see how hard those kids worked, how much they sought to make of their lives. If there was ever a group of people making lemonade out of lemons, it was those kids. No, the folks that tripped his trigger were the ones who were born with perfect, complex, beautiful brains and then just wasted them on willful ignorance, willful cruelty, bigotry, judgmentalism. Who would rather look to thousand-plus year old books for their knowledge instead of to observation and experimentation—and even then, why wasn’t it ever the good bits they took to heart, the parts about loving, accepting, forgiving, not being an asshole to your fellow humans? It was always the old, weird rules they picked out.

But only some of the old weird rules. They still ate their lobster tails, and bacon, and braided their hair. They talked about God’s Love in the same breath they used to gleefully confine sinners to everlasting hell.

Tony realized he was glaring savagely at an nice-looking older lady kneeling on a foam pad on the cobblestone walkway. She was wearing pink-flowered gardening gloves and had a gauzy pink scarf tied over her hair, probably because the day was breezy.

He would have sworn on stacks of _On the Origin of the Species_ that she hadn’t been there ten seconds before.

“ _Haben Sie Hilfe nötig?_ ” she asked.

Tony understood just enough German to get that she’d asked if he needed help, with maybe a slight suggestion that the type of help he needed came from the men in the white coats. “Um, _ja, ja_. Sorry, I don’t really speak German. _Mein freund_ … uh… Loki told me to come here.”

“Oh, _ja_ , Loki! You are Loki’s Tony!” Her gloved hand mimed a beard over her chin. “Yes, yes, back here, please!”

She led him along a continuation of the neat path around the side of the house, where a second, much smaller house, equally cottagey (it probably belonged to the smart pig from the Three Little Pigs) stood, smoke coming in wisps out a small chimney.

“The workshop of my husband, Josef,” she said by way of explanation, then opened the door and directed a stream of rapid-fire German within. An older man’s voice answered, then Loki’s gorgeous, velvety tones, and finally the woman ushered him in, shutting the door gently behind him.

Tony took a second to glance around. On the whole he would have pegged the room as about forty per cent workshop, sixty per cent mancave. On one wall hung racks of well-used and well-preserved tools. There were a couple of free-standing machines, vises, a small lathe and a sander on the workbench (foot-pedal operated, he noticed), and a battered old oak table. The rest of the room held books (many of them plays in a variety of languages), papers, a battered Victrola (for the Norns’ sake), a stereopticon with a large basket of cards (for even more for the Norns’ sake— what was this, 1880?) and a couple of comfy chairs pulled up close to the fireplace.

In one of the chairs sat Loki, looking frail and bundled up in a soft quilt, his long legs tucked under him.

In the other chair sat an old man, strong-featured and slightly stoop-shouldered. His sleeves were rolled up, leaving the tattoo on his arm fully visible.

He was _that_ old man.

This was Stuttgart, of fucking course he was that old man.

Tony looked at him. “' _There are always men like you_ ,’ huh?”

The old man actually giggled.

“My dear friend, Josef Mendelssohn,” Loki said, “May I introduce you to my belovéd fiancé, Tony Stark?”

“Ah, the fine fellow in the red and yellow suit!” the old man said, with a beaming grin. “Would you like a beer, Tony? In the cabinet below the stereopticon. One for me, also. The Bock if you please. And for you, my dear god of mischief, since I know you are not a drinker of beer, we have the good Dornfelder red wine, to give you spirit and make you strong again.”

Tony played bartender, pulling out a bottle of dark Bock for his host, a second bottle of lighter Helles for himself.

He glanced up at the row of shelved playbooks as he poured Loki’s wine into a chunky stemless glass and thought, So the theater fan got to take part in the performance of a lifetime?

On his way back to the fireplace, he used his foot to hook out a carved wooden chair from a small desk with an old-fashioned typewriter, nudging it forward with his hip.

“You must really trust him,” Tony said to Mendelssohn, passing him his beer. “Loki fired that scepter-jewel thingy straight the hell at you.”

“Of course I knew exactly when Steven would arrive, and where.” Loki answered. “Do you think I would ever have shot at my dear friend otherwise?”

“Didn’t exactly know he was your dear friend, did I, Lok?”

“I felt wretched, speaking such harsh words to you, my dear boy.” Mendelssohn leaned forward to pat a bony, quilt-covered lump that was probably Loki’s knee. “And now much worse, hearing what fell after. My poor boy. My poor, dear boy.”

Loki made one of his small, _It was nothing, really,_ gestures. “You performed brilliantly, Josef. Most brilliantly. Better than even I would have imagined. And though the world would now be missing the many beautiful things you have fashioned in your life, you would also have made a fine actor.”

For a grumpy-looking man, Mendelssohn had a rich, happy laugh. “Dear boy, you flatter me! _Ach_ , but you are weary. Shall I fetch it now, to show your Tony? I imagine Leidel has finished her final touches.”

“You are very kind,” Loki answered, clearly making an effort. He set his barely-touched wine on a small table by his elbow and bundled back into the quilt, watching the old man trundle away to the main house, obviously beyond pleased with himself.

“So…” Tony said, watching his fiancé. “Dragon. That’s a new one.”

“I must summon organic matter to create the size. Similar, as skills go, to that which I did in Latveria to survive.”

“Two days, Lok. That’s how long I had to go out of my head.”

But even as he nagged and laid guilt, Tony realized it hadn’t really been two days—or it had, but the feeling was more like when he read in a book, “ _It had been two days_ ,” not as if he’d really lived through it, hour by hour, minute by minute. Basically, he remembered the weird feeling that came over him in the Brecon Beacons, the brief episode with Rupert, in Rupert’s home, then standing on the sidewalk in Germany by the man with the bowler hat.

Things weren’t right, things were damn strange, but he carried on bitching at Loki anyway. “Not knowing where you’d gone to, not knowing when… if… you’d be back. Where’d you fly off to anyhow?”

Loki, by this point, had slumped down until only his big, shadowy green eyes and a wilderness of black curls showed above the edge of the blanket.”

“Just say it,” Tony told him. “Say Avalon. Say ‘I was with Merlin in Avalon.’”

“Myrddin,” Loki said.

“Not the point, Lok.”

“I was with Myrddin my once-love in Avalon, and with the Queens of that country, and they sought to purge from me the poisons I had taken on, in order to be that which I must be when I saw the great beasts to their safety. It was in no way pleasant, I assure you, Tony, no lingering hour of love. When the hour was through, Myrddin found for me a place where I might be quiet, only for a little, and also obtain that which I needed. This was that place, with my gentle and loving friends Josef and Leidel, and the work of their skilled hands.”

Tony glanced away and saw the Mendelssohns waiting just inside the door, a slightly taller, slightly younger man just outside.

He looked so damn familiar it immediately began to drive Tony crazy. He had hair that could have been called strawberry blond or ginger, depending on how generous you wanted to be, a square, weathered face and twinkling eyes.

It was the eyes that made Tony twig to who the guy was, because if appearances weren’t deceiving, which he suspected they were not, this dude should only have had one eye, not two—the second eye having been bored out, as the man kicked and screamed, with a glowing SpaceViking melon-baller.

“Look, Loki,” Mendelssohn said, “The third member of our little troupe, who has volunteered to drive you, since Leidel tells me I am allowed behind the wheel no more, and most certainly not so far as the airport.”

“Heinrich, my dear friend, how very kind of you.” Loki told the red-haired man. There was hugging and very European double cheek-kissing and a long burst of conversation in rapid-fire German.

Then Mendelssohn set the thing he’d been carrying, swathed in green cloth, into Loki’s lap. Loki removed the drape tenderly, running his sensitive fingertips over the wood beneath. It was a Viking ship. A tiny flawless Viking ship, perfectly balanced, tight-seamed and sea-worthy, its prow, stern and gunwales intricately carved in Nordic knotwork. It was a beautiful thing, an astounding piece of craftsmanship.

Long minutes passed during which Tony didn’t understand what it was for. Then, suddenly, he did, and he wanted to lie on the carpet and bawl.

He couldn’t look at Loki, and Loki wasn’t looking at him, he only said, quietly, “It is an extraordinary thing, Josef, Leidel. So exquisite I almost regret to make use of it for its purpose.”

There was more German to follow, more hugs and kisses—the sweet older lady, Leidel, he guessed, even had a hug and a kiss for him—a flurry of goodbyes.

Tony let Loki carry his own damn Viking longboat out to Dr. Heinrich “Two Eyes” Schäfer’s car, even though he was clearly struggling.

_Frau_ Dr. Schäfer, a rather shy lady, with a plain, square face and kind gray eyes, got out of theshotgun seat to hug and kiss Loki too.

When Loki introduced him to her, in German, Tony ignored her outstretched hand and just said, “Yeah,” scowling at Loki when he went into an equally German extended apology. _Frau_ Schäfer’s kind eyes turned sympathetic. She patted Tony’s arm in a motherly way.

Tony didn’t want her sympathy. He was done with Germans, done with Germany, done with Europe as an entire continent, including off-lying islands.

He was also aware that he was being a total butt.

To Loki and everyone. Once safely buckled in, he texted his lead pilot, telling him he expected the StarkJet to be checked, fueled and ready to take to the skies the moment he set foot on British soil.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Loki texting too, in that way he had of not even looking at the onscreen keyboard.

“You were a dragon,” Tony said. “How do you even still have a phone? Or clothes, for that matter? Or did your good buddy Josef swing by the Stuttgart Tall and Scrawny Men’s Store for you?”

Loki looked at his own delicate wrists. “Scrawny?” he asked softly, then pulled the sleeves of his sweater down all the way over his knuckles.

“My pocket universe,” he added. “You have seen me use it before, in Latveria, to hide the children from the miscreant Stefan Szardos, not-brother to my most belovéd Kurt. I may put anything in there I may need later for easy recall.”

“You might as well put your goddamn toy Viking ship in there, even though you won’t be needing it later, since we will so fucking not be giving my son a goddamn pagan funeral.”

“If you believe in nothing,” Loki asked reasonably, “How can _anything_ be pagan? Why is not everything equal, one way as foolish as another? If a way of sending our child to his rest is of comfort to me, why is that way not acceptable unto you, _hjarta minn_? Why have you seemed to have lost all regard for me? Because I could not keep poor small Wilhelm alive within me? Because, in his love for me, my Myrddin chose a place to return me to this world that was not with you? Tony, I was very ill, I had it not within me to act a part, as I must always do with you, that your mind not be troubled.”

“Yeah, it’s always about the acting with you, isn’t it, Lok? Sometimes I think the truth is I damn well don’t even really know you. You could be anyone, anytime. Up to and including the horsefucking, right? If we believe the stories.”

“You might, if you looked, see my devotion, that is no mask. You might see the absolute verity of my love for you, which you yet seem ever determined to strike dead within my heart. Why should it appear, as it does, that you prefer my terrible acts to be as they seemed, that the mad, vainglorious words I spoke be my true words? Why do you seem appalled that I arranged a harmless subterfuge with my dear Josef and my dear Heinrich, whose father was a hider of scientists of the Hebrew faith, and who, though merely a youth, helped me greatly when I brought them forth to Sweden, and thence to America. He also ensured the viridium Mr. Barton and I brought unto Dr. Erik Selvig was of inferior sort, and would stabilize the portal of the Chitauri, yet not allow it to grow large. He screamed and struggled under my hand with wondrous conviction. I could not have chosen a better compatriot.”

“Josef was also quite convincing,” the scientist chuckled. “I felt genuine disgust for you in that moment, Loki.”

“I blame you not, for I felt disgust in myself, and would have still, were my pride more overweening than that of all the _Ӕsir_ ,” Loki said, but he seemed distracted, and added something, sadly, in German to Schäfer, which turned into a rather vehement conversation.

“Trash-talking me?” Tony asked, pretending he was joking, though he really wasn’t.

“I tell of Laufey,” Loki answered, leaning back into the corner of the back seat, resting his cheek against the window, eyes closed, “And how I was too ill-made to be his son, too-ill made also to be Odin’s.”

“Please, do pull out the self-pity, Lok," Tony scoffed. "It’s such an attractive quality in a grown-ass man. Buck up, little buckaroo.”

“I know not your buckaroos, Tony, though I sense they are meant to demean me. Also, I pity not myself, as you well know. Because I was not of size to be a _Jötunn_ and a son of kings, I was left upon the ice to die. Such is fact. Because of my foul _Jötunn_ blood, I was kept for future use with or against Laufey’s people but never afforded the respect or love a prince of Asgard might have known. Such is fact. I merely reiterate why I could not have said those words in my true self. You know these things, Anthony, or once you did.”

Eyes still closed, he pulled his phone, texting rapidly. “Now, I pray you, shame me no more before my friends. We can continue this well enough at a different time, and then you may speak out every drop of poison in your veins. For now I am weary and I’ll none of it, do you hear me? None of it!” He threw his phone into Tony’s chest. “No more of you, no more of any of it!”

“What have you done?” Tony shouted. “What have you done?” He shot out a hand, grabbing hold of Loki’s fragile wrist, more fragile than he’d ever thought, because under his warm fingers Loki’s pale arm crumbled, his skin and muscle into snow, his bones into shards of ice, the disintegration spreading up to Loki’s shoulder, his chest, up his slender throat, his jaw and prominent cheekbones and beautiful eyes, usually so full of love, now brimming with disgust.

Tony screamed and tried to gather Loki into his arms, whimpering, “Babe, babe, I’m so sorry. Please no. Please no.” But there was no Loki, there was only a blizzard of ice and snow, melting slowly over Tony’s skin, until at last the snow became sand instead, the ice the gently moving waves of a blue, blue, endless sea.

Confused, terrified, Tony—Tony Fucking Stark--always cucumber-cool and with an answer for everything, sat in a damp patch on the sun-heated sand and wept.

While a red dragon and a white dragon, high and far away, twined elaborate figures against the cerulean sky.


	11. Lovers Living and Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myrddin is not pleased with Tony and sets out to teach him a lesson. Loki, however, intervenes and returns them to our reality. After a strangely prophetic encounter, they are collected by Anthea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Tony quotes is " _Stepping Razor_ " by reggae great Peter Tosh.
> 
> Mr. Mistoffelees is the magician cat in _Cats_.
> 
> Myrddin's appearance may have been somewhat inspired by that of Sebastian Michaelis, the demon butler of _Black Butler._
> 
> Depends are adult diapers/nappies.
> 
> Circling something three times widdershins (counterclockwise) is often, folklorically speaking, a prelude to magic or magical happenings.
> 
> I'm using the Finnish word _Emä_ , which has dam and parent among its meanings, as the _Jotnar_ equivalent of the way Loki uses _Pabbi_. For the purposes of this story, the part of the _Jotnar_ language will be played by Finnish, which somehow has a nicely _Jotunn_ feel to me.
> 
> Pomegranate... Hades. In Greek mythology, the goddess Persephone is forced to live six months out of every year in the underworld because when the god Hades kidnapped her and brought her to his realm, she made the mistake of eating six pomegranate seeds.
> 
> Pavement=sidewalk in this context, rather than the American meaning of a paved surface of any kind.
> 
> David Bowie was born David Jones but changed his name so as not to be confused  
> with Davy Jones of The Monkees.
> 
> The Welsh name Dafydd (David) is pronounced "Davith."
> 
> Depending on the source, Gwyddion was either a mortal or semi-divine sorcerer, very wise and skilled in music, storytelling and illusion, a helper of humankind and a fighter against the greedy and small-minded. He supported the cultural arts and learning, and fought against ignorance.
> 
> _Arwydd_ =Lord

* * *

The man by the edge of the sea couldn’t be called tall, like Loki—in fact he appeared even shorter than Tony himself--but gods, was he mesmerizing, in the same way Loki was, with that identical lithe, mercurial elegance, every single motion quick, intensely graceful, preternaturally poised. He stood out from the landscape like something that had been outlined in thick black ink in the middle of a pale hazy watercolor. Reason dictated he wasn’t really outlined in anything, of course, but that was far and away the impression he gave.

This guy fucking ruled his world and, damn, didn’t he know it?

It hit Tony in a flash that Loki hadn’t actually picked up his Princing Skills in Asgard, where he’d started out being the Assfather’s good little boy, trying to fade into the background and not get noticed--but from this dude. From Myrddin, because of course this was Myrddin. Who else would it be?

He had hair straight as straight could be, ink-black and cut in the jigs and jags commonly found only in the 'do’s of Manga characters or the lead singers of Japanese boy bands. His face seemed completely androgynous, too beautiful to be a man’s, too handsome to be a woman’s. His eyes were literally red as blood, the whites very white, the red all iris and no pupil, unless the pupils were as crimson as what surrounded them.

One look at those eyes, you could tell they saw everything. Every fucking thing. They were the most absolutely aware eyes Tony had ever seen. This dude was so not a kindly old wizard-man with robes and a pointed hat, doling out wise advice. He was the words of the reggae song, personified:

_If you want to live_  
_Treat me good_  
_If you want to live_  
_I beg you treat me good_  
_I'm like a walking razor_  
_Don't you watch my size_  
_I'm dangerous_  
_Said I'm dangerous_

With that in mind, Tony experienced a second brain-flash. Had Loki ever really, truly wanted to take over the world, ever really, truly wanted to rule, with his raw power, his brains, and this guy by his side, that would’ve been a done deal. Loki would be sitting on a golden throne in Stockholm, or some fucking place. Probably since the 1930’s, at the latest.

_This worldwide Great Depression amuses us not! Let it cease!_ A wave of the hand. Fate accomplished.

Brain-flash number three informed Tony that, without the Iron Man suit, Loki (even his weakened, sweet, loving Loki) could destroy his mind with a single thought, his body with a gesture or a blow. Even inside the suit, what was to prevent Loki from reaching out and offhandedly frying the circuits (and, incidentally, Tony himself)?

Even without trying, Loki tended to thoroughly jack up anything electronic. Tony had needed to reinforce and shield nearly every circuit in the tower from practically the moment Loki moved in, especially in the penthouse.

Tony wondered if Loki realized that he could probably mess up Thor’s lightning the same way. He wondered, too, if his fellow Avengers, when they were sniping at Loki, making his life a living hell, got exactly how easily the god could leave them drooling, wearing bibs and Depends for the rest of their days.

He also wondered if even he had understood, until just recently, that if Loki truly meant his invasion to succeed, Thanos would have his Tesseract gift-wrapped, with a shiny bow, and Loki would be lounging on the aforementioned golden throne in the country of his choice.

Seeing Loki, devastatingly sick as he was, doped-up and barely even awake, nonchalantly suspend tons of rock overhead, reform it into a giant shiny glass ball, then go on to wrangle enormous, ancient mythical beasts, having shapeshifted to a dragon himself, pretty much put that one to bed.

Tony knew, too, that he’d landed himself in some deep shit. Myrddin (yes, of course it was Myrddin) appeared clearly less than pleased with him.

Being Tony-fuckin’-Stark, though--and even knowing he was guilty as sin, at the very least, of now and then being a crappy human being to someone who was absolutely everything he wanted and needed in his life, someone who loved him unwaveringly in return--he felt required to play cool.

“The Magical Mr. Mistoffelees, I presume?”

Myrddin stepped closer and, gods, if he didn’t move exactly like a cat, then no one in the history of overly-graceful people ever had. He even managed to rock being dressed like a shipwrecked pirate, in a white puffy shirt and black lace-up breeches that left half his calves bare. His all-seeing eyes looked at Tony as if he was a giant, steaming pile of dog shit.

“Hey, last time I saw you, weren’t you wearing a bowler hat?” Tony said. “You might want to rethink that one for disguise purposes. Not so much of a thing now as it was in the old days. ”

“You,” Myrddin said. His voice was deeper than Tony expected, with that Welsh lilt he had to admit he did find kind of crazy attractive. “And your cleverness.”

It seemed, in Myrddin’s vocabulary, “cleverness” and “steaming pile of dog shit” had basically the same meaning.

“So, I assume it’s you I have to thank for the Magical Mystery Tour I just went on?”

In the blink of an eye, the sorcerer was right in front of him. _Right_ right in front of him, no concept whatsoever of personal space. He crouched down, balancing with perfect ease on the balls of his feet, those freaky eyes of his level with Tony’s.

Close up, they were even freakier, because things moved in them—images, and writing in what looked like a multitude of languages and alphabets.

And, yes, they saw everything. Clearly. Everything shameful thing inside him. Every shitty thing he’d ever done.

Everything.

The memory of each snide, insensitive, assholeish thing he’d said to Loki that day alone (and _why_ had he said those things? why? he wasn't always perfect, but he'd _never_ spoken to Loki that way ) clamored inside Tony’s head and sliced like razorblades into his tongue, one cut for each cutting remark.

Literally. His eyes were soon dripping tears, his lips, blood. He couldn’t even move away, couldn’t escape.

“Evermore,” Myrddin said, looking almost sorry for him, “For each unkind word you speak to my beloved. Think well, then, before you speak, lest hasty words bring regret."

If he'd been able to speak, he might have made one of his smartass quips, something along the lines of, "You find that one in a fortune cookie, Mr. Wizard?"

Or might not, because on the whole it wasn't bad advice where Tony, with his life-long history of leaping before looking and speaking before thinking, happened to be concerned.

And anyway, he couldn't speak. All he could do was groan, and spit blood, then spit again. He felt sick—with pain, with remorse, with the metallic-tasting liquid that trickled down his throat.

Myrddin waved a pinky-finger slightly sideways. “Enough. You disgust me.”

The cuts stopped, and the bleeding too, though Tony’s tongue remained swollen and hellishly sore.

“You have him and I cannot. You have that which was best and most beautiful in my world, all that was warmth, sweetness, love, delight, joy, yet you stand high upon your pedestal and gaze down on him with scorn, as if he was food for dogs or pigs. I am a god in this world, Stark. A GOD. Yet I would give beauty, Craft, immortality, wit, to lie one night only in his arms.”

Myrddin leaped up suddenly and began to pace as Loki sometimes did, flinging his body through rips in the air and out again. “I would kill you, mortal man, stop your heart where you sit, but that it would grieve him, and that I cannot do. Yet I shall punish you, as I reign here. How shall it be so? How shall it?”

He stood suddenly still, then, too still for a human, except for his eyes, which were alive with flames.

After minutes passed, he appeared to start talking to someone Tony couldn’t see, in a language he didn’t understand, agreeing it seemed, with what the invisible other said, ending at last with, “Very well. Thus shall it be.”

He stalked close again, circling Tony as a predator stalks its prey, three times counterclockwise before he pounced, fingers gripping Tony’s hair, forcing his head backward. “The Queens of Avalon urge clemency. They say your grief is great, that you suffer much with the loss of your son. They say your path toward manhood was twisted, devoid of proper teaching in the noble ways of honor and feeling.

"And so…” A wave of one elegant hand. “I shall become your instructor. Under my tutelage, you shall feel.”

A long index finger swiped blood from Tony’s face, using the sticky wetness to draw a complicated mark on his forehead, and at once the world plunged into full dark. A deep, bone-cracking, ball-freezing cold engulfed him—and no wonder, he lay on his back on a shelf of solid ice, sharp, distant, unfamiliar stars winking into existence above him.

He still couldn’t move from where he’d been placed, could only wave his arms and legs, which seemed weird until he saw how small those arms and legs actually were, with tiny, chubby hands and feet. Christ, he was a kid, a really little one—no, not even a kid. A baby, all by himself on the ice, surrounded by angry, clashing, frightening noises.

He was scared, hungry, and he missed his _Emä_ desperately, who even in the middle of the frightening times carried him close to his chest, and sang to him in his low, humming, comforting voice, and loved him much, even though he was tiny, and not comely for one of their race.

“You will be safe, my _pikku poikanen_ , my cubling, my pretty one. You will be safe ‘til father comes for you.” _Emä_ bent his large blue face against Loki's soft, round, equally-blue baby tummy, kissed him and nuzzled him, then stroked his cheeks with his great blue thumbs.

“Oh, my _lumihiutale_ , my snowflake,” _Emä_ said, “Carry love to your father for me. Another day will we unite as one.”

And then _Emä_ was gone, into the _Hirvittävä Aikakausi_ , the Terrible Time, and though Loki he waited, first patiently, then with wails and cries, as the hunger tore into him, father never came.

The one who did come, at last, who picked him up and studied him long, with neither kindness nor love, was not father, though he had a family-smell.

This one did not want him to be blue, was repelled by his blueness, by his small black horns and tiny black claws, by the eyes _Emä_ always told him were beautiful, warm-red as blood.

He was in no way beautiful to this one, not his _pikku poikanen_ , never his _lumihiutale_.

For the first time in his very young life he did not know who he was, what he was…

Loki Laufeyson, _Kuninkaan Poika_ , King’s Son, he tried to remind himself. Loki Laufeyson,  _Kuninkaan Poika_.

Oh, by all the gods of the _Jötnar_ , where had _Emä_ gone to? Why did he not return? Where was father, if father meant to come for him?

He began to wail ever more loudly, as well as to send wildly to anyone of his kind, to any of his race nearby, but every _Jötunn_ mind he touched had begun the long march into the _Kylmä-kuin-Kylmä_ , the sweet Cold-Beyond-the-Cold, or had already gone over the mountaim, and was lost to him.

No one remained to save him from this stone-hearted creature, from this… Odin.

Odin. So it was called.

The Odin terrified him. Its fingertips burned like ten fires on Loki’s cool skin. Its mind could not hear him, or did not wish to hear him, or perhaps did not even work properly. Worst of all was the pain of the rank disgust the Odin felt for him. He had always been loved, and never known he was disgusting.

He wanted to weep harder, but made himself silent instead.

“What did my idiot son think, to make such as you, hmn?” the Odin asked of him, in its harsh, bitter voice. “What does he think, that I would call you my grandson, you foul little corpse-coloured thing?”

He felt the cruel thoughts roil through the Odin’s mind, and in his terror he began the unthinkable, leeching the sky-color from his beautiful skin, turning his warm eyes cold and pale, absorbing his shiny, small horns, making his strong claws weak and thin, as the Odin laughed at him.

“You accomplish my work for me,” the Odin chuckled, hauling him away with long strides from his safe hiding place on the ice-shelf.

“Now be of good cheer. The giants never wished for you. To them, you are a small, weak thing to be cast aside, but for me you may yet serve a purpose, little worm.”

He brushed the old monster’s mind, just the slightest touch, but enough to see clearly. Never again would he be a _Kuninkaan Poika_. _Emä_ was lost to him.

Never again would he be another’s _lumihiutale_ , another’s _pikku poikanen_. He would only be a thrall to this mean-hearted creature of the Warm Lands.

Oh, gods of his people, if _Emä_ was lost to him, then where had father gone to?

 

Tony, overfilled with thoughts and emotions not his own, groaned again, grinding his face against the wet sand.

 

He wept when Baldr took him, first coaxing, then violent and shaming, and again when his twin sons were born, that he loved them so much, but was so hurt by their making, so worried, so terrified—not for himself, but for Sigyn, his loving friend, and for his younglings, throughout the months when they ran and hid, always fearing the end of their hiding-time.

He cried out, and wept unstoppable tears of grief and fury when his sweet boys were taken. By the time the serpent’s venom dripped into his eyes, he’d begun to scream so uncontrollably, it felt as if his throat would tear to shreds.

When Sleipnir grew inside him, after all that had occurred, he could no longer struggle, cry out, even actively weep. He could only lie limply on his side, eyes leaking, afraid to live through another minute, hour, day.

Everything hurt. Everything hurt too much to bear another second...

 

“Let it cease now,” a kind, almost-familiar voice said. “Let it cease.”

A gentle hand touched his shoulder, a firm touch, a loving presence, and just like that he was Tony again. His own self, in his own body, the impossible feelings ended, even if the memories lingered on.

He knew then it was Loki's hand he'd felt, his own Loki who’d spoken to break the spell. He lay on the beach again, in warm, soft, dry sand. Even his tongue had gone back to normal, but still he couldn’t stop crying—for his poor put-upon, beloved Loki, for little Wilhelm, even for himself. For what he’d lost, but also for what he’d found, and for the way, in his own incompleteness, he hadn’t been able to treat Loki as he ought to have treated him.

Tony sobbed over and over that he was sorry, he was sorry.

“No curses,” Loki said in a quiet voice, shushing Tony softly, stroking his hair, brushing sand gently from his face. “No suffering. My Myrddin, you are so very dear to me, yet it is not right that you do this, for he is the _hjarta hjarta minn_ and, though you may not wish to hear it, equally dear.”

“Yet he hurts you.” Myrddin sounded sulky, there was no other word for it.

“Then I shall be hurt,” Loki answered calmly, “And win through it, as I have always done. Myrdd, you know my weakness and my strength. When did you come to doubt me?”

The sand whispered. Myrddin dropped down beside them, all power, energy, barely-controlled rage. “Look at him,” the wizard spat. “Little mortal. Little man.”

“I have been called ‘puny god,’” Loki told him. “Who are we, to set ourselves above the mortals, _cariad_? They hurt as we hurt, love as we love. They can be as brave, or as terrible in the end, as we are, even if the scale is not so large. This have I learned as I live amongst them, out of my own foolishness, my own cruelty. Have you not, too, learned these lessons, _ddraig goch_?

"I am weary, Myrddin. My heart and my soul are ill, and I would see no more suffering in this world or any other, least of all the suffering of one I love so well. And at your hands? Oh, Myrdd.”

Tony felt Loki shift, though his fingers remained woven through Tony’s hair, and finally managed to crack open an eye to check out what was happening.

“I will win you back to me yet,” Myrddin told Loki, sounding stubborn as a little kid that’s in the wrong, and knows full well, but won’t admit it.

“Myrddin,” Loki said softly, so much kindness and love in that one name it made Tony's chest ache, as if the arc reactor had been ripped out of him, with nothing to take its place.

Myrddin looked like he wanted to cry, his face all screwed up in awkward directions. Tony remembered what Loki had said, though—being half-demon, he wasn’t able. He was for all intents and purposes, dead, he’d lost his love, and he couldn’t even relieve his feelings by having a good cry about it. All he could do is sit there on the sand in his puffy shirt and his Manga hair, looking very young and very miserable.

“Myrddin,” Loki said to him in the same kind voice. The dragons wheeled down out of the sky, landing beside him, much smaller now than they’d been in the mortal world, and sleeker, but still enormous, the red of the red one so bright it was like staring into a bonfire, the white pale and glittery as a blizzard.

“See, they have come to amuse you. Care for them, _cariad_ , and think of me kindly, as I think always of you.” Loki's calm, adult voice faltered a little. “Please, Myrddin- _bach_? Please, for me?”

Loki stood up in that way he had, of just seeming to float to his feet, to all that ridiculous height of his, with no intermediate awkward lurching steps in between. He pulled Tony up too, and Tony, being still completely incapable of standing on his own, clung to him desperately.

“Tony,” Loki said, “It is time to go home. We have accomplished all we came for, all we could. I am weary, and I long for our children.”

Tony slipped his arms around Loki’s waist, holding tight as he could. “Me too, honeybunch,” he mumbled into the folds of Loki’s shirt—he had a puffy shirt now too, just like his former lover. “Me too, times infinity.”

Myrddin jumped up also, looking as if he meant to do something—anything—to stop them. To stop his beloved, anyway. He’d probably have been fine with Tony himself taking a long, long swim with a large group of sharks.

“Loki, wait…” His face still looked young, desperate, innocent. “I only… One kiss, I beg of you. One embrace...”

Loki shook his head, almost smiling. “Oh, Myrdd, _cariad_ , did I teach you too well? Do you think me ignorant of the laws of this place? You might as soon invite me to Hades and offer me a pomegranate.”

“I thought it worth a try,” Myrddin said, with a sudden laugh.

Loki gave the wizard one of his sweet, bright-eyed smiles. “My love, I so often miss you! I have met our son again recently, and he is rather horrid, yet I like him well. He has your cleverness, and disdain of lesser beings.”

“In no way resembling you in that respect, Loki?”

“Not at all, Myrddin. As Tony will tell you, I am all tolerance and sympathy.” Loki raised his hand as if bestowing a blessing—and maybe he was. “Farewell then, my _ddraig goch_ , until next we meet.”

“Farewell, my most-loved _ddraig wen_.”

Loki’s hand gripped tight to Tony’s upper arm, nearly propelling him away from the beach. “Look not back, beloved. Look not back. I shall unweave us an opening as quick as I may.”

The sand turned to gravel under their feet, then to grass, and after a moment of complete disorientation they were stumbling on ordinary asphalt, clinging to each other to keep their balance.

Cars shot by, undeterred by the heavy slush on the streets and in the air, looking like they were in a race to the death with the buses and bicycles. The light was a comforting, ordinary gray, the air chilly, but no longer frigid.

“At least I set us safely upon the pavement,” Loki observed philosophically. “To be pulverized by a bus would make a poor end to our adventures.” He sank gracefully down onto the sidewalk, back propped against an ornate cast iron lamp post that clearly belonged in Narnia, legs pulled up against his chest. “I would sleep. Only a little, mind.” His eyes had already gone closed.

“Uh, Lok…” Tony crouched down, jiggling his arm. “Not your best idea ever. Your butt’s gonna get wet.” He jiggled Loki’s arm a little harder. “Seriously, babe, you’re gonna get arrested for public intoxication or something, then what will we do?”

“Call upon your excellent attorneys, best-belovéd,” Loki murmured, “Or perhaps upon my friend.” He had his blissful look, which generally meant he was down for the count. “The folk of this land listen to her. I once gave to her some special mischief to hold in her heart, for those times things became tedious, and she is glad of it, for her life holds much dullness, and much propriety, though her hats are generally quite splendid. I miss hats, rather, don’t you, Tony?”

“Not quite my time, babe,” Tony said, smoothing back Loki’s hair, which was frizzing alarmingly in the wet.

_“Prynhawn da, cwnstabl yr heddlu, sut wyt ti? A yw'n amser te eto_?” Loki asked. Clearly a question—or maybe more than one.

“Still not fluent in Welsh, Lok, in case you were wondering,” Tony said.

“Not you, foolish belovéd, but the Police Constable behind you, who wonders, as you thought one might, if I have overindulged in something not good for me—which I have, but not in a manner he has considered.” Loki’s eyes flew open, brightening with delight. “His name is the same as David Bowie’s natal name, only in Welsh—and so _Dafydd_ instead of David—and though he resembles not David Bowie in the least.”

With that, Loki appeared to go back to sleep.

It was true, anyway, that the rather confused young constable looking down on Tony's suddenly-loopy fiancé did not resemble David Bowie in any of his incarnations. He was short and stocky, with pink cheeks and tight black curls, and if his dad hadn’t been a coal-miner, his grandpa certainly was, or almost certainly.

Or possibly a hobbit.

“How did he know my name?” the kid asked.

Caught off guard, Tony borrowed a lie. “Have you ever seen the American TV program, _The Mentalist_ …?”

_“Na, na_ ,” the young constable said absently. He reached out timidly, touching Loki’s damp hair, his pale cheek. _Na, Gwyddion, yr wyf yn gwybod eich bod, ydw i'n peidio_?”

Loki’s eyes opened slowly. “Gwyddion? I have not been named so for many years, but yes, you know me indeed, _mab brenhinoedd a beirdd_.”

His face contained a strange expression, as if something had started to play out in front of him that Loki hadn’t foreseen.

“’Son of kings and poets,’ I named him?” Loki said, presumably for Tony’s benefit, but it also seemed like a question Loki was asking himself.

He struggled to his feet, taking the constable’s face between his hands—an action that for most people would have ended up with the perpetrator face down on the sidewalk, handcuffed, and with a mouthful of slush.

This kid wasn’t just any ordinary rookie constable, it seemed. He knew a fucking god when he saw one.

“ _Dan Pen y Fan_ ,” Loki began quietly, his voice increasing in intensity as he went on, though not particularly in volume, “ _Sydd newydd ei dorri, yn gorwedd pêl o grisial, mae llawer lliw, ac yn y_ _bêl cleddyf nerthol. Dynnu allan, yn fab i brenhinoedd a beirdd, ar gyfer y diwrnod y caif ei hangen i eich llaw_.” With his fingertip, he drew an elaborate mark in green fire on the young man’s forehead, very much like the one Myrddin had drawn on Tony, then bent to seal it with a kiss. “ _Fy arwydd a sêl yr wyf yn marcio arnoch, y gallech fod yn hysbys_.”

The kid’s eyes flooded and, trembling, he clutched both Loki’s hands tight in his own. _“Arwydd_ _Gwyddion_. My Lord. My Lord Gwyddion…”

“ _Fod o ddewrder da_ ,” Loki said. “Be of good courage, dearheart.”

“’Under Pen y Fan, newly broken, lies a ball of crystal, many-coloured, and in the ball a mighty sword,’” said Anthea’s voice from just behind Tony’s shoulder—and there was Anthea herself, unsullied Christian Louboutins, three thousand dollar trench-coat and all.

”’Draw it forth, son of kings and poets," she continued, "For that day it is needed to your hand. My sign and seal I mark upon you, that you may be known.’ Isn’t that what you told him, Loki?”

Loki didn’t answer. He looked beyond shattered, confused, swaying on his feet.

Anthea, of course, had one of her long black cars pulled up at the curb.

“Great Lord,” Jones said, taking Loki’s elbow, “Allow me to guide you.”

“Allow me to guide you too, babe,” Tony teased, but Loki was beyond responding.

Somehow, at least, between the two of them, they got him into the car, but that was all she wrote.

Anthea handed Jones a crisp, cream-colored card, snapping out in her curt, posh way, “We shall be in contact, P.C. Jones.” It almost sounded like a threat.

“We’re in Brecon, if you were curious. On the Beacons' doorstep,” Anthea informed them as they rolled through the climbing streets, in a voice even crisper than her card, then told the driver, “London.”

No address, no nothing. Just “London.”

The doors slammed shut all on their own, which also made Tony slightly nervous, though not nervous enough to keep him awake. He was wrecked. More than wrecked. Too tired for more than basic brain functions. He could breathe, that was about it—the jury was still out on having his battered heart actually beat.

Tony leaned up against Loki, his eyes slammed shut, and in less than a minute he was, metaphorically and peacefully, sawing several cords of wood.

That time, despite everything, he didn't even dream


	12. Into the West

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony makes a second visit to Avalon. The Minister (aka Mycroft Holmes) comes to call. Tony and Loki get things right... and then it's time to say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm putting a grief and loss trigger warning on this chapter, though I'm very much of the "not all tears are evil" school of thought. What's here is meant as a farewell, not a sucking pit of despair. I hope it reads that way.
> 
> _Noson dda_ =good evening (Welsh)
> 
> Loki's book is _A Tale of Two Cities_ by Charles Dickens, first published in 1859.
> 
> The bronze statue of J. M. Barrie's best-known character, Peter Pan, was erected in Kensington Gardens (just to the west of The Long Water, close to Barrie's Bayswater Road home) in 1912. The statue was commissioned by Barrie and created by Sir George Frampton. Here's a picture: [Peter Pan Statue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan_statue#/media/File:PeterPan_Statue_Londres.jpg)
> 
> The Rolling Stones' song " _You Can't Always Get What You Want_ " is featured on their _Let It Bleed_ album (1969).
> 
> " _Shall We Gather at the River?_ " (aka " _At the River_ " are common names for a hymn called "Hanson Place," written in 1864 by Robert Lowry.
> 
> Tony's quote: "Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind..." comes from the 2002 Disney movie, _Lilo & Stitch_.
> 
>  The Serpentine (aka the "Serpentine River"), created in 1730 by order of Queen Caroline, is a 40-acre artificial lake located in Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park (technically only the Hyde Park part is the Serpentine proper, while the Kensington Gardens section is The Long Water). As lakes go, it has a long, narrow "snakelike" shape, hence the name.
> 
> descant=a separate, higher melody sung above the basic melody of a song

* * *

“Huh,” Tony said. At least he recognized where he was sleeping, which was the big, fancy bed in his room at The Savoy, though he had absolutely no memory of how he’d gotten there.

A glance to the right told him that at least he hadn’t lost his fiancé along the way. Loki had curled up in a ball of Lokiness right by Tony’s side, black hair spread everywhere. Tony rearranged a few handfuls of the stuff to gain access to Loki’s forehead and give it a kiss, rewarded by the flickering smile that passed over Loki’s lips.

He scooted closer, so that his fiancé was right up against him, and enjoyed a pleasant half-doze, stroking Loki’s hair, rubbing his shoulders, relishing the comfortable bed and soft covers, but mostly just the feeling of holding his love close, especially when Loki unwound from his ball and wrapped those long limbs around him like a highly affectionate monkey.

“I love you, babe,” Tony told him, “You know that, right? Just when I think you couldn’t possibly, you get more amazing. The cave, the dragons, on the island… Ye gods, my sweet baby, you rock like a rocking thing.”

Loki made a little humming sound, one that sounded basically happy, which was encouraging. With his beloved in his arms, Tony drifted back into sleep, and dreamed.

 

Tony found himself back on the island again, unmistakably on Avalon, but this time he wasn’t confused or stressed or afraid. Ahead of him, a fabulous sunset painted the ocean with reds, oranges, purples, golds, the most amazing sunset he’d ever seen. His feet appeared to be bare, the sand beneath them felt soft and pleasantly cool, and he stood for a few minutes curling his toes into that soft coolness, feeling at peace, feeling also, though he didn’t know why, a sense of anticipation.

He waited for someone there, he knew, but had no idea who he'd come to wait _for_.

Eventually, Tony noticed a figure moving toward him, up along the line of the beach. Now and then it stopped, bent to collect a rock, and flung it out over the gentle waves lapping the shore—presumably trying for some stone-skipping action, though not with great success.

Still, as the figure approached, Tony realized it— _he_ , actually--was a sturdy little boy, just about the same size as the triplets, with dark eyes and curly dark hair. He appeared to notice Tony at exactly the same moment Tony got a good look at him.

Instead of being scared, or shy, the kid gave Tony an enormous grin, both sweet and full of mischief and delight. He looked so happy, so completely happy, it made Tony’s heart hurt a little bit.

“Hey,” he said, “How’s it going? Skipping stones?”

“ _Noson dda_ ,” the little boy answered politely. “I am not especially good yet, though with practice I shall improve.” His voice had an adorable Welsh lilt, and he still didn’t seem the least bit nervous, even as Tony walked down the slope of the beach toward him. Maybe “Stranger Danger” didn’t mean anything in this place.

“They call me Will,” the kid said brightly, and suddenly, in a total flash of inspiration, Tony knew exactly who the little boy was, and instead of just hurting, it felt as if his heart would tear itself to shreds inside his chest.

He dropped down on his butt in the slightly-damp mix of sand and soft-edged stones and let the wavelets rushing up the beach wash over his toes. The water felt a little chilly, like the water off Malibu early in the morning, but nowhere near as cold.

“Would you tell me all your names, Will?” Tony asked. “First middle last?”

Will looked at him as if he thought it was a funny request, or maybe something so elementary it hardly needed to be asked. Still, he complied.

“Will is a pet name for Wilhelm,” he explained. “So, Wilhelm Lokison Stark.”

Tony stretched out his hand. “Anthony Edward Stark.”

For a few seconds Will gave Tony’s hand an exact, though child-sized, duplicate of Loki’s, “What is this uncouth custom?” look, but then he took Tony’s hand and shook firmly, adding, “As we are blood of blood, no harm comes from touching me.”

“I kinda forgot about that little rule for a minute,” Tony said. “I’m glad it doesn’t apply in this case.”

Will’s skin felt warm, a little sweaty, a little gritty, just like the skin of any kid that’s been playing outdoors. Just like Fen’s and Jöri's skins when they’d been racing like crazy kids around the park—though not like Hela’s. Hela had special sweat-and dirt-repelling faculties and was never less than scrupulously clean. Also, she'd never be caught dead without those neat little gloves she always insisted on wearing.

“I’m your dad,” Tony added. “I live in New York City with your _Pabbi_ , your sister and two of your brothers. One of your other brothers is grown up, and lives is London. Your oldest brother, Sleipnir, still lives in Asgard. Do you know about those places?”

Will nodded emphatically. “Oh, yes! Narfi and Vali told me about Asgard, which is a very bad place, but New York and London sound quite exciting and splendid to behold. Myrddin told me also of these distant cities. He is my…” He paused, clearly searching for the right word. “Uncle? Stepfather?”

“Guardian?” Tony suggested.

Will gave him a big grin. “Guardian! Truly, that is perfect, for he guards me against all bad things.”

“But who looks after you? Where do you live? Are you happy?”

“The queens look after me, and the scholars and teachers, and Myrddin also, of course. But mostly my brothers, who are grown, look after me. We are the Three Brothers Lokison, Narfi, Vali and Wilhelm, Worthy of Sagas, and we live in Green Cottage, close by the Palace of the Queens.”

Will climbed over Tony’s thigh, settling into the space between his legs, his warm, small back against Tony’s chest.

Without even knowing he intended to do it, Tony wrapped his arms around the boy and held him close, pressing his face into Will’s soft, dark-brown  curls, which smelled of salt, sand, sunlight—and underneath, a trace of Loki’s ice-evergreen-clove scent.

“Cry not, please?” Will said after a little while. “Tell me of divers things instead?”

“Such as?” Tony couldn’t help but smile. The kid sounded exactly like his _Pabbi_.

“How to make the _fjanndinn_ rocks skip. Then would my joy overflow!”

“Did your brothers teach you that word?”

“Which word is that, Da?” Will twisted to gaze up at him with those big, brown eyes. He was Loki’s son after all, and he appeared just a little too innocent.

“Never mind. Anyway, skipping stones is just physics, honey,” Tony told him. “The secret is to not let the trailing edge get too far under the water, and the best way to do that is to get your stone spinning, the faster the better. If it spins five time per second, you’ll get five skips, nine times per second will get you fifteen skips, and so on.”

“Is this true?” A flat stone lifted off the strand and began to spin rapidly in the air, shooting off suddenly over the calm water, where it skipped and skipped and skipped itself out of view.

“I stand amazed!” Will exclaimed. “How extremely clever you are, Da!”

“I thank you.” Tony kissed the top of his messy curls. “Is that—the magic—why you’re here, son, instead of…?”

Will twisted to look up at him. “Instead of somewhere else, do you ask? Instead of nowhere?”

“I guess. Yes.”

“Like _Pabbi_ , I am made of magic, Myrddin tells me,” Will said, sounding almost shy. He toyed a little with Tony’s engagement ring, then with the StarkWatch on his left wrist. “I… we… all of us live here against the day The Light requires our strength.” He moved himself to sit on Tony’s leg, cuddled up tightly against him.

Tony held his son close, trying to think what it all meant but, also, just glad for this stolen time he’d been given, however brief it might be.

“Tell me, if you please, Da?” Will prompted.

“About what?” Tony answered, grinning.

“About _Pabbi_. About my brothers and sister. About Midgard. Everything about Midgard.”

Tony talked:  about their family, The Avengers, the tower, their friends, Central Park and New York in general, holidays and birthdays, baseball, bubblegum, balloon animals, football, music, books, subways and trains, cars and other machines, movies, TV, ice-skating, basketball, deserts, penguins (and every other animal he could think of), photographs, fashion, restaurants (fast food included), deep caves and towering mountains, the many, many peoples of earth with their different languages, customs, faces, about acrobats like his Uncle Kurt, circuses, the joy his _Pabbi_ had in creating things, his own joy in inventing and building.

And the greatest story of all, how much Will had been wanted and wished for. How much he was missed.

So many things to tell him. So many more.

After it all Tony noticed his son had gone to sleep in his arms, and he held and rocked him for what might be the only time in his life, singing (off-key as usual) from his kid repertoire: “Yellow Submarine,” “Octopus’s Garden,” Loki’s favorite, “Blackbird,” and his own special lullaby version of “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath.

Even long after dark the moon, round and full, remained low over the water, shining a path of light that looked almost solid enough to walk on.

After a little while, two young men, clearly twins, came toward them, lighting their way with lanterns as they traveled along the beach. One had an untamed mane of long black hair and the other cropped blond curls, but their faces were identical to one another’s, and also to Loki’s face, and just like their _Pabbi_ , both were tall and extremely slender.

The blonde on took the lead. “Lay our little brother upon the sand, if you please, good sir,” he said politely. “Never would we take the chance of touching you needlessly.”

“Are you Narfi or Vali?”

“Vali, I am named,” the blonde said. “Narfi is my brother. Even here upon the Isle of the Ever Young he speaks not, for the Allfather of Asgard, curse him ever, stole his voice when he was but a child, and so am I the voice for both of us.”

The dark-haired man smiled, giving a small bow, and Tony couldn’t help but smile in return. They were lovely, both of them, and he wished Loki could be with him now, just to hug them and be with them again.

Maybe it would be too much, though, too painful—to see three of his sons, to know Myrddin lived here (or whatever he was the wizard did), then just to walk away again.

Narfi nodded, as if he’d heard Tony’s thinking.

“It is as you believe,” Vali agreed solemnly. He bent to lift his sleeping baby brother from the sand. “Would you…” He paused, brows drawn together. “Tell _Pabbi_ , remind him, if you would… the time of grief lasted such a little time, and nothing that became us was of his doing. Tell him we knew wonderful happiness before, with him, and wonderful happiness now. Tell him, please, that he need not grieve for us so.”

He passed sleeping Will to his brother.

“Come, dear friend," he said to Tony, "I shall walk with you to the doorway.”

They walked. It wasn’t far—just up the slope of the beach to where the sand gave way to soil, then to low-growing grass and moss.

The door actually was a... door, in fact it strongly resembled the bathroom door in his suite at the Savoy.

Tony nearly laughed.

“May I ask one thing?” Vali said, obviously troubled, when Tony’s hand had closed on the knob. “Is it truly your intention, honored one, to enclose our brother’s bones in a box of cold stone, not let him set sail in his first and final ship, to voyage forth unto the stars?”

“Actually,” Tony answered, “I’m not sure if that was something your buddy Myrddin put on me, or just me being an asshole in that particular moment in time. But no, I think we’ll do what your _Pabbi_ needs, whatever helps him rest easier with this. I hate for him to be hurting, and he’s already had to deal with all the physical stuff. Believe me, I’m not gonna make this harder for him than it needs to be.”

“You are a better man than Myrddin takes you for, I believe.” Vali gave his bright, just-like-Loki’s smile.

“I’d like to be,” Tony answered. “I’ll try to be.”

“You are, good sir,” Vali insisted. “You are.”

“I kinda want like hell to give you a big, almost-stepfatherly hug right now,” Tony told him.

“But perhaps not.” Vali laughed softly.

“Perhaps not.” Tony laughed too. “Take it as given? And one for Narfi too?”

“Yes,” the young man answered. “For Narfi too. Know you, also, that we will care for our sweet Will, always, love him always, from now until when we are called. When you think of your little one, know he is happy and well, with family that cares for him. Let this knowledge dilute a little of your sorrow with a measure of joy.”

“I’ll try. We human beings, though, we’re not so other-worldly as you are. We’re more our-worldly.”

Vali laughed outright at that. “Then I expect you shall find life with our _Pabbi_ quite often surprising. Farewell, Tony.”

“You know, I expect pretty much the same. Goodbye, son.”

Tony twisted the knob, opened the door, and stepped through.

* * *

“Belovéd,” Loki said, gazing down on Tony from his great height with an expression of complete perplexity. “Why have I found you asleep in our vessel of bathing, instead of in the bed with me?”

“It was the door. The door from Avalon brought me here. Or…” Tony sat up, rolling his neck and shoulders to work out some of the million kinks that seemed to have settled there. Christ, he was too damn old for bathtub-sleeping. Anyone out of college was too damn old for bathtub-sleeping.

“Speaking of 'why haves,' why have you dressed like you’re going to meet the board of directors when you haven’t even showered yet?”

“I cleansed myself magically, so as not to disturb your rest,” Loki answered, a trifle primly, “And I have dressed more formally than is my wont because the Minister is within our sitting room. He let himself in. Also, as it is teatime, he has just ordered tea. I am avoiding him for as long as possible, for he shall require me to speak of things I do not wish to speak of at this time.”

“Oh, babe.” The unhappy-but-hiding-it set of Loki’s mouth told him all he needed to know. “My poor baby, you’ve dealt with more than enough—let me deal with this, okay? Only…” He flung a leg dramatically over the edge of the tub. “Help me up, will you? I’m frozen permanently in bathtub-position.”

Loki, being Loki, hoisted him to his feet with no effort at all, fighting a smile as he did it.

Tony groaned, exaggerating it a bit, but not completely. Too goddamn old.

“Okay,” Tony said, pulling down his robe from the hook on the back of the bathroom door, shrugging into its warm toweling folds. Sleeping in the ceramic tub had left him slightly chilly, but he didn’t bother to belt it.

“I’m feeling a little feisty. It would be my very great pleasure to go all outraged fiancé on his privileged British ass, after what he put you through.”

“There was no one else, belovéd, to accomplish the task.” Loki withdrew to perch on the edge of the bed. “Yet, if you would…”

“Hug first?” Tony came near, and Loki wrapped both arms around him, pressing his face to Tony’s chest.

“That’s what I like. My Loki, nice and close.” He slipped his fingers in beneath Loki’s elaborate braid, rubbing the back of his neck gently, the way his fiancé always liked. Loki groaned softly and pressed closer.

“Honey, you’re still so warm,” Tony said. “Does that equal still not feeling good?”

Loki made one of his noncommittal sounds.

“Uh, meaning yes,” Tony scolded kindly as he could. “Babe, climb back into your sweats and hop into bed. If he still needs to talk to you after I’m through with him, he can damn well come in here. He hasn’t just had a bad illness followed by major surgery with a pen knife and no anesthetic. You have. He can show you some consideration.”

“I would still like tea, though,” Loki said, wilting visibly.

“Tea the beverage or food tea?”

“Both, actually,” Loki answered. “I’m rather hungry. And I do enjoy my cuppa.”

“Wow, I’m gonna alert the media. The headlines will read: Loki Friggason Willingly Accepts Food. In Further News, Hell Freezes Over.” Tony grinned to show Loki he was only kidding.

“I’ll make sure you’re fed as soon as tea, the meal, arrives. Do you need any help getting back to bed?”

Loki shook his head.

“Okay, then, wish me luck. How do I look?”

“Hairy and fairly disreputable.” Loki sniffed. “Also slightly smelly.”

“' _Wunderbar_!' as Kurt would say. Just what I was aiming for. Try to get some sleep, babe. I’ll see you soon.”

Tony strolled into the sitting room in open Savoy robe and red-and-yellow Iron Man boxers, plunking himself down on the couch just slightly too close to where the Minister was sitting.

“Hiya, Mervyn,” he said, striving for “obnoxiously genial” in his tone. He thought he succeeded nicely. “It is Mervyn, isn’t it? How’s it hangin’?”

“I beg your pardon?” The man looked like he smelled something bad, but maybe he always looked that way. Or maybe Tony really did kind of reek. The Minister had also been afflicted with very pale skin and thinning close-to-ginger hair to go with his sour expression. It wasn’t the best look for anyone.

“You’re Mervyn Mycroft Holmes, right? ‘Fess up, before I’m forced to call you ‘Minister’ for the rest of our acquaintance. There’s one guy I’ve called Agent for, like five years, though he recently changed his name to Director. Now I call him Director. Except when I mess up and call him Agent again. It’s so hard to keep these things straight.”

“Ah. Yes. Mr. Coulson.” The Minister’s expression clearly said, _You, sir, are a buffoon! A buffon, I say_!  Sadly (for him) he seemed to be too much of a political animal to actually voice the words.

“He’s still walking a little funny from the new one you ripped him.” Tony considered the man. “Seriously, though, this little jaunt into madness aside, I owe you thanks for springing Loki from S.H.I.E.L.D. That was good work. He didn’t have much time left.”

Holmes inclined his head in what he totally would have claimed wasn’t a regal manner—only it totally was.

Tony guessed they both knew who ran this country, and it sure as hell wasn’t Loki’s dear friend with the charming hats.

Or the Prime Minister, for that matter.

“The current mission? As I said, not quite so thankful. I will thank you, though, for including your baby brother—that’s what you call him, right? He’s a total brat, but we kinda like him, and he actually may have saved Loki’s life, so that’s a plus for Sherlock. Little curious how he knew the ins and outs of Lok’s anatomy, but better not ask too many questions, right?”

“Because,” Holmes said, in the stiffest, driest, possible voice, “When he was born his eyes were red.”

Tony thought of Myrddin’s crimson eyes, and of Loki’s exquisite _Jötunn_ form.

“Not surprising, I guess, all things considered.”

He thought maybe he understood Sherlock a little better, why this tall, handsome (in his unique way), brilliant man set himself so far apart from others, even further than it seemed he needed to, why it took people like John, Mary and Martha to love him, people different in their own right,people who’d be quick to set him right when he acted like an asshole, but wouldn’t ever judge him for being as he was.

Holmes gave something approximating a smile. A small, tight, I-still-smell-something-bad kind of smile, but still a smile.

“You know, Mr. Stark, I more or less inherited Loki from my predecessor. What precisely _does_ one do with a sorcerer of nearly limitless power and intellect, who has blood ties to every crowned head of Europe—you’ll have to have your fiancé explain that one to you—who pops up out of nowhere every now and then and alternates between being monumentally useful and sowing rampant seeds of chaos? That is, when he doesn’t merely select some picturesque old house in the country and set to painting astoundingly beautiful paintings or composing heartbreaking music?”

“He writes now, too,” Tony said. “Children’s books.”

“Oh, joy,” Holmes said, even more drily, if possible. “Now he’ll be subverting our youth. Still…” He shot his cuffs. “Just part of the job. One does what one can.”

He gave Tony a long look, one that for the first time didn’t seem filled with disgust. “Look after him, won’t you, Stark? I find him rather… charming I suppose might be the word. Like discovering all the fairy-stories of one’s childhood are real. The world would be a poorer place without our god of mischief, I should think.”

“I’d be inclined to agree,” Tony said, almost kinda-sorta liking the Minister for the first time.

“I shan’t disturb him. I know he’s not well.”

“Understatement.”

“I shall call on him again, you know,” Holmes said, rising from the couch. Standing, and close-up, he was even fucking taller than Loki. “But not for a good while. Not, barring dragons, until he’s quite well. And, with hope, not for something so dangerous. Dragons. Good Lord. What’s the world coming to?”

“You’re not staying for tea?” Tony asked.

“I do have a country to run, you know,” Holmes sniffed, demonstrating perfectly the meaning of the term, “stuffed shirt.”

Tony walked him to the door, offering Holmes his hand before he left. “So…”

“Until this evening, then,” the Minister said, with a firm, if slightly clammy, handshake. “Please do accept my condolences.”

“Thank you, uh… Mycroft,” Tony answered, thinking, Until…?

But he knew, really.

And, no, as he’d promised Vali, his baby brother would not go into a cave of cold stone. He supposed Loki had thoughts about the way things should go, and guessed they were probably good ones. He also suspected Loki felt just as shy talking with him about the subject as he felt awkward talking with Loki.

“Until tonight then,” Tony said tiredly.

He wanted to climb into bed with his honey, cuddle him, eat (or was that drink?) their tea and just not worry about anything else, forever and ever and ever.

Still, one last thought occurred.

“Mycroft?” he called after the Minister, when he was partway down the hall.

Holmes stopped and turned, with major questioning-face. “Hmn?”

“The guy who made Loki sick—any thoughts?”

“About the minion? None.” Tony tried not to laugh aloud at the fact that Mycroft had just used “minion” seriously in a sentence—all he could honestly think of was the little yellow chicken nugget guys with goggles in those movies Fen loved.

“How about the boss?”

Holmes appeared to consider. “For someone with both the reach and the expertise, I should look seriously at the Latverian, von Doom. I might also add that only he, in my opinion, would be mad enough. He hasn’t considered that he no longer has the Asgardian by his side, and that Loki, charming as he can be, does in fact possess a temper. I would, however, think twice about informing your beloved at this juncture. It is, as yet, a theory unproven, and he is, as yet, at far from full strength. As his health improves, though…”

“Yeah,” Tony answered. “Yeah.”

The Minister turned away again, giving Tony a last, lazy wave as he ambled off, passing the tea-cart as it emerged from the elevators.

“Do enjoy!” Mycroft called back over his shoulder.

_Don’t worry your snooty little head about it_ , Tony thought.

He let the waiter in, signed the bill, instructed the guy to lay out everything on the coffee table, then to shut the door behind him as he left. If the guy was secretly a Hydra assassin sneakily disguised as room service, he would just have to kill them, Tony figured--both he and Loki had moved beyond caring by that point.

He half expected to find Loki asleep, but instead discovered him huddled up under the covers, reading the paperback he’d brought with him from New York, one finger poking out now and then to turn the page.

Tony tried to peek at the cover to read the title.

“Whatcha reading? Any good?”

“ _’It was the best of times_ ,’” Loki recited, “ _’It was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it_ _was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the_ _season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of_  
_despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us_.’” Tears clogged Loki’s voice, but only a little. His face, though even thinner and paler than usual, looked flawless as ever.

“Shakespeare?”

That got him a certified Loki eye-roll, serving with a steaming side order of “ _I am marrying an illiterate_.”

“Honestly, Anthony. Did the words I just spoke in any way resemble iambic pentameter?”

“And if I had any idea what that meant, I would surely tell you, my love.” Tony laughed. “You just gave me a look as if I was a newt. Or a salamander. Or… What’s that other squishy amphibious thing that’s like a newt or a salamander, but isn’t one?”

“An eft,” Loki said faintly.

“An eft. Yeah. I’m so gonna start taking you to pub quizzes, my darling. You and Bruce. Bruce knows a shitload of strange facts.”

_Yes, as if that will happen,_  Loki’s expression clearly said, but he put in, “We must bring Kurt as well, for he knows all manner of pointless trivia pertaining to films, television, comic books and his so-called holy book of the Christian man-god.”

“Also known as _The Bible_ ,” Tony laughed.

“Well, yes,” Loki replied impatiently. “Yet, oddly, though Kurt was reared in the circus, in a series of foreign countries, none of them speaking your English, and never began formal education until manhood, a mere decade ago, yet he well knows how to distinguish _fjandinn_ iambic pentameter from the single most famous opening paragraph in the works of Charles Dickens.”

“You’re really, truly pissed that I don’t know, huh?”

“I am affronted,” Loki responded. “’Pissed’ is crude.”

“All right then, Affronted One.” Tony crawled carefully onto the bed, not wanting to jostle his honey if he could help it. “How are you feeling, by the way?”

“I ache,” Loki answered, with rare openness. “In my head, my body… my heart.”

“Sweet darling,” Tony wrapped an arm around him from behind, squeezing gently. He kissed the back of Loki’s neck, then licked around the curve of his ear, making Loki wriggle a little.

“So, I ask, who is hoping that thou soon feelest better?” He bent lower, breathing into Loki’s ear. “I am, I am, I am, I am, I am.”

Loki twisted, glaring at him with something between shock and outrage, before he grabbed the pillow beside him and smacked Tony over the head with it soundly. “You! You fooled me! _You_ fooled _me_!”

Tony turned him, carefully, until they were face to face. He kissed Loki’s forehead, then his nose. “Mischief managed, my love. Mischief managed.

Loki laughed softly then, holding him close in return. “Ah, _hjarta minn_ , I love that you surprise me.”

Tony almost told him, then, about his perfect, heartbreaking, beautiful dream. But he didn’t.

Maybe he guessed it might be more than Loki could take at that moment.

“One moment, please, belovéd,” Loki said, giving Tony’s shoulder one of his especially gentle and loving touches. “I shall certainly return to you, just as I was, quite soon.”

* * *

They’d caught a ride this far into Kensington Gardens, almost as far as the Peter Pan statue, aboard a park-worker’s motorized cart. The weather had improved by leaps and bounds in the past couple days, and normally Tony (and Loki too, no doubt) would have seen the journey across the Gardens as a pleasant, easy stroll, but tonight Loki just didn’t have it in him.

Tony felt glad that they’d laughed, eaten, been loving with one another a little that afternoon, because now he suspected both of them were hanging on purely by grit and their fingernails. In the mirror that evening, shaving and trimming his beard, his face had looked furiously angry.

Loki merely looked like a ghost.

A ghost in a truly excellent suit, the back of which Tony now watched drift away from him, heading toward a long black car with tinted windows, parked just to the side of the pedestrian walkway, where cars were clearly not intended to go.

Except Tony had an idea that particular car went where it damn well wanted to.

He watched a door open, and Loki disappear inside. Loki and his mysterious friends, Loki and his convoluted past, good for endless surprises.

Tony suspected that what they were about to do was completely against the rules of every Royal Park in the city (there were eleven, Loki had informed him, and had offered to name them, but Tony declined), and probably every non-Royal Park too, even if you were Tony-fucking-Stark.

Clearly it was a matter of who you knew, and Loki (he sometimes forgot) often really did have friends in high places.

By which, he didn’t mean Asgard.

It was just, choosing this place—the statue of the boy who never grew old, the pretty little boy playing his pipe, cast in bronze, with the fairies all around him, the small, gentle river, the good people gathered to mourn with them… it was all so appropriate, and so very, very Loki, and it shredded what was left of Tony’s heart to ribbons.

“' _All children, except one, grow up_ ,'” Loki had quoted, then cried a little.

_All children, except one, grow up_ , Tony thought.

He didn’t know if he was cried out, or getting ready to implode, or what. He just knew he didn’t want his darling, smart, adorable little boy with Myrddin on the Island of the Ever-Young, he selfishly, lovingly wanted him here. With him. With his _Pabbi_. With his brothers and sister and uncles.

He knew very well what a certain Mr. Mick Jagger would to say to that one.

_“You can’t always get what you want,” right, Mick_?

Vali (the best of good kids) must have suspected that Avalon and its inhabitants--all the whats, whys and hows--had been more-than-slightly difficult concepts for Tony to wrap his brain around).  He must also have known that Tony's harsh funeral plans, along with the even harsher words he'd spoken to Loki, weren't really examples of Tony's best self. 

I made Tony shiver to think of what he'd said--the out-of-nowhere disrespect for Loki's needs, the insistence on shutting his sweet little boy’s body—the little boy with the soft brown curls and the skipping-stones—into a tiny, cold vault in the Stark family crypt, with a burial presided over by priest of a religion he didn’t believe in, or some unctuous, asshole funeral director with no idea of who or what they were, or what little Will was to them. That would have been sacrilege, of the only sort Tony could believe in.

“Tony,” Rupert said, in his kind, calm, authoritative voice. “Elizabeth and the other women have prepared your little one, if you’d like a moment…?”

Just beyond the statue, Sherlock had caught Tony's attention, standing there in his big fancy coat, protesting loudly, “There’s something in my eye, John! No, there’s something in my eye!” as his best friend and a tall red-headed man rubbed his back.

“Poor fellow,” Rupert murmured. “He doesn’t know what to feel. Or, I suppose, _how_ to feel. That’s my eldest with him. Sebastian. He and Sherlock were at school together. They shared rooms.”

“Poor Sebastian,” Tony said, though he only partly meant it.

Rupert laughed, almost soundlessly.

The sky whistled overhead, louder and louder, until the noise made Tony's head hurt. Fine as the evening was, he thought he might have heard thunder too, and hoped it wouldn’t rain.

“I’ll wait for Loki, I think, to…. I’m a little…” There wasn’t actually a word or a gesture for what he was at the moment.

“Let me introduce you to _Herr_ and _Frau_ Mendelssohn, then, Tony, from Stuttgart, and also _Herr_ _Doktor_ and _Frau_ Schäfer, of the same city. They are very old friends of Loki’s, from the war. _Herr_ and _Frau_ Mendelssohn built the beautiful ship for your little boy.”

A moment of so passed as Rupert repeated everything in German, as it appeared both couples were vastly less bilingual than they’d been in his Myrddin-supplied nightmarescape.

“Would you tell them that I’m honored to meet them officially, as last time we were anywhere near each other I wore a big red and yellow suit and they and Loki were giving Oscar-worthy performances? Will you tell them too, that the ship is very beautiful, and they honor us greatly by giving our son such a wonderful vessel for his journey?”

Rupert translated, and the words in his elegant voice sounded so much more beautiful, apt, and grateful than anything Tony ever could have said.

The men shook his hand with what Tony could only call a fatherly tenderness. The women kissed his cheek and made small, dove-like sounds of sympathy.

The red-headed man, Rupert’s son and Sherlock’s former roomie, called out with perfect volume control, “Would everyone please move to the riverside? Let’s give the family a little time, shall we?”

“My son is an Anglican priest,” Rupert told Tony quietly, and before Tony could protest, added, “Not here in that capacity, obviously, but he is an excellent people-wrangler. He also possesses a fine singing voice.”

Tony nodded numbly, watching the ones who’d come to mourn his first child go down to the river…

Unexpected words echoed in his mind:

_Yes, we’ll gather at the river,_  
_The beautiful, the beautiful river…_

He knew the lines were from some hymn, though he had no memory of having gone to church or even Sunday School in his life, even in the company of his marginally-Catholic mom. Howard wouldn’t have allowed it, he supposed. Maria could do as she pleased, in that case, but no son of his would darken the door of a church, not even for a wedding or a funeral.

Tony must have heard the song in some movie, he guessed, and the melody, stately and heartfelt, had somehow stuck with him.

Everyone else was gathering, moving away: Buffy and Rupert, and Sebastian, Rupert’s son; the two German couples; John and Mary, with little dove-like Martha Hudson (assassin and/or retired exotic dancer) sobbing between them; Mycroft Holmes and Anthea, Sherlock…

“Sherlock!” Tony called out. “Where are you going?”

His stepson (almost) turned, a perfectly Loki stormcloudish expression on his totally unLoki-like face.

“' _Ohana_  means family,' Sherlock. 'Family means nobody gets left behind...' right? You're family."

Sherlock looked obstinate, but he came.

Mjolnir leaning against the near side of the Peter Pan statue probably should have been a clue (along with the earlier whistling in the air and the phantom thunder that had so perplexed him) but Tony had gotten so used to seeing the damn thing lying all over everywhere that the magic hammer had nearly ceased to register. The sight of Loki and Thor huddled together on the statue’s far side, the little Viking ship cradled in their adjoining laps, caught Tony totally by surprise.

The thunder god sobbed heartbrokenly on his brother’s shoulder, as Loki soothed him, and Tony wished just for a moment that Thor could buck up and support them instead of being consoled himself. He forgot sometimes that beneath his soon-to-be brother-in-law’s giant Viking exterior lurked a very tender heart, and that the same things that had wounded Loki so deeply had wounded Thor too.

“Thor flew to us, when he felt our pain,” Loki said softly.

Tony suspected it was actually Loki’s pain the thunder god felt, but he wasn’t complaining. Even for a god, flying across the Atlantic by clinging to a hammer—even a mystical hammer—couldn’t be fun.

“It’s really good to see you, bro,” Tony said. “Thank you for making the journey.”

“Our guests have brought gifts for Wilhelm,” Loki said, seriously sounding like he was teetering on the edge. “Treasures for his journey, and companions, Tony. You see?”

Wilhelm still appeared to be merely sleeping, swaddled (neatly now) in Tony’s own soft, worn black shirt. Tucked around him were the kind of treasures a small boy might appreciate, at least when he got older: a small, sturdy, but intricately-carved wooden dog and horse; a little picture book of fairy tales; a lovely miniature compass; the kind of yo-yo that lights up when it’s spun; a pendant on a leather cord with what Tony recognized now as protection runes; a child-sized magnifying glass with a mother of pearl handle…

“From you, Sherlock, yes?” Loki asked, glancing up at his son.

“It’s a preposterous custom,” Sherlock snapped. Then, after a moment, added, “It’s the right size for a child, and the nicest one they had. I made the proprietor bring out his entire inventory. John said this was the nicest. I concurred. Mary gave sweets. You’d think a nurse would be aware that sweets are not good for children.” He straightened suddenly, setting off toward the other mourners at a brisk stride just short of a full-on run, bellowing, “John! I’ve something in my eye again! John, immediately!”

Thor, besides looking sodden and miserable, also appeared very confused.

“He does not know how to feel yet, my brother,” Loki explained, “But he is learning.”

Thor nodded solemnly, then reached into pocket in his cloak.

_Thor has pockets in his cloak?_ Tony marveled.

The thunder god pulled out a little toy wolf, slightly chewed, an elaborate hand-puppet in the shape of a dragon, and what had to be the biggest box of Crayolas known to humankind.

Loki added what appeared to be a pennywhistle, but intricately and beautifully designed, not something that would dent and break in a year.

“My first instrument,” Loki said. “I was not allowed… That is, I taught myself, before more formal training became available. I have carried it in my pocket universe a long while now.”

“I don’t have anything,” Tony said. “Gods, Lok, I didn’t think…”

Loki squeezed Tony’s hand, forestalling his panic. “In your wallet, best-belovéd, the picture of our family? What better gift could you give?”

Tony reached into his pocket, and there, side-by-side with his wallet he found a rock. A perfectly flat rock, with perfectly, smoothly rounded edges. A perfect skipping stone.

Tony met Loki’s wise, sad eyes, and caught the glimmer of his slight, sad smile.

_Oh, my love_ , he thought, _I so don’t believe in miracles, but you are my miracle._

“May I carry him?” Thor asked, sounding as close to shy as Thor could sound. "May I carry my much-loved nephew?"

“We would be glad for you to do so, dearest brother,” Loki answered.

“We would, Thor,” Tony said. “We’d be very grateful.”

Thor rose easily, the little ship cradled in his arms.  He walked easily with it too, though the ship and its burden surely would have been on the heavy side for any mortal man.

Tony and Loki followed, hand-in-hand, leaning on each other a little as they went, the journey of a few yards seeming like miles.

_Yes, we’ll gather at the river_ , Tony thought, his head full of all the sad music in the world. _The beautiful, the beautiful river…_

There were words, Tony was sure of it. Lovely words, heartfelt words. He had a vague awareness that _Herr_ Mendelsson said a profound (and strangely secular) Jewish prayer, that Thor recited an  _Aesir_ poem for the loss of a child, which Loki translated into equally profound and even more heart-destroying English, but all he could do was watch Loki’s face, the play of moonlight and starlight across his fair skin, the movement of his features, conveying more than words or pictures or anything else in the world ever could.

He clung to Loki’s hand like a drowning man to a life-raft and thought, _I love this god, this man, my one and only miracle of light and mystery and magic._

Tony totally lacked Kurt’s pure, graceful, kind, unquestioning faith. He had nothing to pray to except the fantastic, complicated, gorgeous universe, but he prayed anyway, _I know what I am, who I am, he said. Please don’t let me hurt Loki again. Don’t ever let me drive him away. And if  I’m ever such a total shithead that I do, let me please, please, please find my way back home to him again._

“Tony.” Loki touched his cheek lightly. “Belovéd. It is the time.”

Tony glanced up into Loki’s still face, sure his own expression must have shown nothing but heartbreak and despair, like actual cracks running across his skin.

“Worry not so, _hjarta minn_ ,” Loki murmured, and with one arm gathered him close. Thor’s red cloak was draped over Loki’s other shoulder.

Surefooted as always, Thor waded into the Serpentine, setting his little burden gently on the surface of the water. The ship floated perfectly, not listing by so much as a centimeter, it was so seaworthy, so beautifully made.

_Frau_ Mendelssohn exclaimed softly and happily, probably about the quality of their work. Her husband’s quiet Germanic shushing sounded equally proud.

Loki raised the slim white hand that wasn’t currently curled comfortingly around Tony’s ribs, letting loose a pale light exactly like a star, which floated gently down into the ship and lay there some minutes, increasing slowly in size and brightness, gaining colors that had nothing to do with Hela’s gift of a box of 164 Crayola Crayons, until it burned more brilliant and more full of hues than even Loki’s most vivid descriptions of the Bifrost.

“Too beautiful!” a woman breathed. “Oh, too beautiful!” It might have been Mary’s voice, but Tony wasn’t certain.

As the fire burned and the ship was consumed, the column rose and grew until it was like the trunk of a tree, and then the top of the trunk spread into branches, and the branches into twigs tipped individually with flame, until each flame changed, with a shimmer and the sound of small, silvery bells, into a tiny pale-blue bird.

All the rest fell away into fine ash, leaving the birds to fly, brighter than bright against the indigo sky, a wheeling, swirling impossible cloud of blue that rose and rose until it dissolved into the stars.

Rupert’s rich baritone voice rose then too, as if following the birds, and after a moment a clear tenor, almost certainly the voice of Rupert’s son, came after in descant.

_Lay down your sweet and weary head_  
_Night is falling, you’ve come to journey's end_  
_Sleep now, dream of the ones who came before_  
_They are calling from across the distant shore_

_What can you see on the horizon?_  
_Why do the white gulls call?_

_Across the sea a pale moon rises_  
_The ships have come to carry you home_  
_Hope fades into the world of night_  
_Through shadows falling out of memory and time_  
_Don't say: ”We have come now to the end”_  
_White shores are calling, you and I will meet again_

_And you'll be here in my arms_  
_Just sleeping…_

_Hjarta hjarta minn_ , said Loki, quietly, in Tony’s head, _Now it is time we turn again for home._

Tony took Loki’s hand, holding as tight as if his whole life depended, and followed where he led.

 

To be continued in “ _Wedding Bell Blues_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enormous thanks to all who've commented, Kudo'd and read!


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